New Game in Town: The Launch of the Center for Industrial Revolution 4.0 (C4IR) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The establishment of the Center for Industrial Revolution 4.0 (C4IR) is set to be a game-changer in Vietnam’s development trajectory. At a conference held on April 25th, Mr. Nguyen Anh Thi, Head of the Management Board of Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park, announced that C4IR will be set up in the High-Tech Park and will serve as a hub for innovation and technology advancement.

The C4IR initiative is a result of a cooperation agreement signed between Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Chairman Phan Van Mai and leaders of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland on January 16th. Under this agreement, Ho Chi Minh City and WEF will work together to establish C4IR in Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park, making it the second center of its kind in Southeast Asia after Malaysia in 2023, and the 19th in the world.

According to Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Vo Van Hoan, C4IR will benefit from the knowledge and experience of the global C4IR network to support and propose solutions and policies in line with national and international technology trends. The unit will operate under an autonomous mechanism similar to a business, with three main pillars: leadership, operations, and support blocks. The leadership team consists of representatives from the government, businesses, and schools, with large businesses playing a key role in implementing innovation initiatives.

The operations division engages stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem to pilot new technology products and proposes policies for their adoption. C4IR aims to identify priority areas, generate specific initiatives, and establish labs for implementation. The support sector focuses on building the community, sharing knowledge, and fostering connections while providing support in areas such as finance, human resources