Taiwanese executive Kenneth Chen is leading an alliance of tech advocates in Taiwan and Vietnam to help traditional factories go digital.
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00:00All this week on Taiwan Plus, we've been looking at how Taiwanese firms in Vietnam
00:04are pushing their operations to be a leader in that country's digital transformation.
00:08Joyce Sun spent a week in Ho Chi Minh City and joins us now in the studio.
00:11Hey Eric, that's right, we've been looking at how Taiwanese factories are trying to lead
00:17an upgrade of Vietnam's manufacturing sector.
00:20Now Taiwan is globally known as a high-tech powerhouse,
00:23but bringing cutting-edge tools into a factory setting,
00:26especially overseas, comes with many challenges.
00:29Now the reality for many factories in Vietnam right now
00:32is that they're just not set up to go digital,
00:35let alone bring in something like AI.
00:38But I met with a Taiwanese mechanical engineer who leads an alliance of experts
00:42across industries to help firms make this transition.
00:46And when I asked him overall where Vietnam is in this transformation,
00:50this is what he said.
00:52Only big companies have the resource to play with a very expensive big toy.
00:58But most of the majority, they cannot catch up.
01:01They don't even have the foundation to do it.
01:04In Asia, like Taiwan or Vietnam, they used to rely on people to exchange information.
01:11That won't be fast enough to solve the problem.
01:15We need a digitization tool, a computer, to connect all the data together.
01:20If you don't have a good tool and management, then usually it will take many days.
01:27If you're still on that stage, then it's impossible for you to use AI.
01:32When we talk about Industry 4.0, digital transformation,
01:36all this smart manufacturing, no single company can solve all the problems.
01:43So we need to put all the resources together to collaborate.
01:49And how different has it been implementing your concept in Vietnam versus in Taiwan?
01:55It's very interesting.
01:57Because Taiwan, a lot of people, they have their successful experience.
02:03So for experienced people, for experienced operation, it's more difficult to make change.
02:10And in Vietnam, luckily, they don't have such a burden.
02:15And because of the new opportunities in here,
02:19many Taiwanese businesses, their factories in Vietnam are even much bigger than the ones in Taiwan.
02:25The reality is the businesses have to survive in business, have some profit, so they can reinvest.
02:32AI, just like other technology, are just the tools for them to see,
02:38okay, is it a good time for me to adapt this solution to solve my problem,
02:42to improve my productivity, improve my profit?
02:46So just use the same mindset, then you will be okay.
02:52As you just heard there, some promising opportunities in Vietnam.
02:56But the make or break first step is to figure out how to get factory operations online.
03:02And to do that, you're going to need the right people and the right skills.
03:06Absolutely.
03:07And tomorrow, we'll take you into a university to speak with Vietnamese engineering students
03:12at the heart of this effort, because yes, education is a huge piece of this puzzle.
03:17So be sure to tune in tomorrow for that. Thank you, Joyce.