The working session, hosted at the Hanoi headquarters of Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy on September 17, convened key leadership from both entities to explore emerging technological developments, modern newsroom practices, and the broader integration of artificial intelligence into business operations and economic journalism.
The Intel delegation, led by Mr. George Chacko, General Manager, Sales Management Group Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand of Intel, was accompanied by Mr. Phung Viet Thang, Country Manager of Intel Vietnam; Ms. Bui Le Thuy Linh, in charge of Government customer sales; and Mr. Mai Quang Minh, in charge of press for Intel Vietnam.
Opening the discussion, Mr. Dao Quang Binh, General Director and General Managing Editor of Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy, highlighted the 35-year history of the publication under the Vietnam Economic Association. Backed by a network of leading economic and technology experts, the organization is actively transitioning its extensive archives and expertise into a dynamic digital ecosystem.
Notably, Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy is currently developing a digital product ecosystem and is oriented towards applying AI in journalism, data creation and management, and economic knowledge extraction. This is one of the directions being implemented by the magazine to combine years of accumulated economic knowledge with AI technology, aiming to enhance the capacity to extract and disseminate economic information in the digital environment.
Askonomy: From an Economic Chatbot to a Made-in-Vietnam AI Solution Platform
Starting from an economic information chatbot researched, developed, and launched by the magazine in 2023, Askonomy has now evolved into a made-in-Vietnam AI solution platform for organizations and businesses.
According to representatives from VnEconomy, through collaborative development and continuous updates of versions with strategic technology partners such as Actable AI and Hemera Media, Askonomy aims to support businesses and organizations in fully automating operational processes, optimizing data extraction, and efficiently processing content.
This platform is built on a specialized large language model for economics and a core AI Engine that includes speech recognition technology and intelligent automation, allowing for the conversion of data, speech, and text into specific tasks.
In practice, this technology has been applied at Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times / VnEconomy in a smart newsroom model, from collecting and analyzing economic data, supporting translation and content editing to creating audio news.
Askonomy is also used as a meeting assistant, supporting transcription, translation, and real-time content processing at multilingual events organized by Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy and/or other organizations such as VINASA (Vietnam Software and IT Services Association).
The three main products include: Asko Meet, serving transcription, translation, speaker recognition, and meeting content summarization; Asko Smart, a chatbot capable of extracting internal knowledge and performing various tasks with simple commands; and especially Asko CMS, a content management platform integrating AI capabilities in the content production and publishing process.
Sharing about Askonomy, Ms. Hoang Thu, Director of TechConnect, VnEconomy, stated: "This AI platform does not stop at being a regular Q&A chatbot but has risen to become a powerful assistant supporting organizations and businesses in executing their tasks. For instance, instead of having to operate through many discrete tools, users can now handle all requests using natural language, from translation, converting text to speech, to converting speech to text."
Mr. Trung Huynh, Founder of Actable AI Vietnam, mentioned that the platform can be trained directly on each company's own database and deployed on internal server infrastructure.
According to the development team, this is also an approach to meet requirements for data management and security when businesses integrate AI into their operational processes.
Broadening Horizons for the development of Vietnam's Economy
Mr. George Chacko, General Manager, Sales Management Group Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand of Intel, noted that a significant point in the AI system of Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy lies not only in technology but also in the fact that the platform has been built in accordance with "VnEconomy's own style and data."
With experience overseeing the Asia-Pacific region, Australia, and New Zealand, Mr. George Chacko assessed that Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam /Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy is a visionary entity in developing and applying AI early on, having begun building AI tools as early as 2023.
He expressed his impression that VnEconomy does not merely stop at providing access to AI tools for employees like many other organizations but also has a unique approach by developing and integrating AI directly into core operations, making this technology a natural part of the business process. According to him, this is an important distinction between experimenting with AI and building real AI capabilities within the company.
From an infrastructure perspective, Intel representatives stated that they could collaborate with Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy to optimize AI deployment costs, effectively utilize existing infrastructure, and build the next technology roadmap. Both sides also discussed the possibility of deploying the AI applications of Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy on edge devices, especially for tasks such as note-taking, translation, and speech processing.
With models under 1 billion parameters, representatives from both sides believe that deployment can occur on end devices, thereby limiting the need to upload data to external systems.
Appreciating the role of VnEconomy over more than 35 years in accompanying organizations and businesses to promote economic development, Mr. Phung Viet Thang, Country Manager of Intel Vietnam, stated that cooperation between Intel and Tap chi Kinh te Viet Nam / Vietnam Economic Times/VnEconomy could expand from technology and media to policy, business, and industry strategy issues. Through this, both sides aim for the common goal of enhancing the role of technology in Vietnam's socio-economic development.
Founded in 1968 in Silicon Valley (USA), Intel Corporation is one of the largest semiconductor technology companies in the world, known for inventing the first commercial microprocessor (Intel 4004) and shaping the personal computer era.
After nearly six decades of development, Intel is now not only a leader in chip manufacturing and data center infrastructure but is also strongly transitioning to AI solutions, cloud technology, and global semiconductor foundry services.
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