[HO CHI MINH CITY] US technology giant Qualcomm on Wednesday (Apr 2) announced its acquisition of MovianAI, a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) subsidiary of Vietnam’s private conglomerate Vingroup, for an undisclosed amount.
Established in 2024, MovianAI is a former division of VinAI – another firm in the Vingroup ecosystem.
The Business Times reported last October that Vingroup was in talks to sell its stakes in two related firms, VinBrain and VinAI.
US chipmaker Nvidia later in December announced that it acquired VinBrain, a Hanoi-based company that specialises in AI-powered healthcare solutions, without disclosing the deal value.
These deals come as Vietnam pushes to deepen commercial ties with Washington at a time when its US$123.5 billion trade surplus with the US in 2024 has drawn scrutiny and could trigger reciprocal tariffs by the Trump administration.
VinAI was established as Vingroup’s research institute and then became a subsidiary in 2021 with a charter capital of 425 billion dong (S$22.3 million); VinBrain was an affiliate company in which the Vietnamese conglomerate invested 126.6 billion dong.
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Vingroup also launched a US$150 million fund to invest in startups in sectors including AI, semiconductors and cloud computing in October 2024.
Acquiring Vietnamese AI talent
VinAI remains part of the Vietnamese giant. However, its founder and chief executive Hung Bui will join Qualcomm following the acquisition.
The latest deal is expected to expedite Qualcomm’s creation of advanced AI solutions for products such as smartphones, PCs, and software-defined vehicles, the US tech firm noted in its statement.
Since 2023, VinAI has worked with Qualcomm to launch AI solutions dedicated to smart cities and smart mobility.
In 2022, the Vietnamese firm was recognised by Thundermark Capital – a US venture capital firm and a member of the Nvidia VC Alliance – as one of the top 20 global companies leading the way in AI research.
It was the only Vietnamese representative on the list, alongside the likes of Google, Alibaba, Apple and OpenAI.
In 2023, the company introduced PhoGPT – an open-sourced AI generative model series named after Vietnam’s traditional noodle dish and pre-trained for the Vietnamese language.
VinAI has also developed several products in collaboration with VinFast, its sister company that produces electric vehicles. The duo introduced MirrorSense, an AI-driven automatic mirror adjustment technology that won an innovation award at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2024.
Vingroup’s latest financial statement showed that as at the end of 2024, it held 65 per cent of equity interest in VinAI and MovianAI each.
It also holds a majority stake (69.2 per cent) in VinBigData, another AI-focused subsidiary which was established in 2021 with capital of 471 billion dong.
