Vietnam jumped one place to fifth place among the ten ASEAN member countries in the 2023 Government AI Readiness Index, according to a report from the Government News.

The country’s overall score increased to 54.48 points in 2023 compared to 53.96 in 2022 and 51.82 in 2021.

The US and Canada continued to be at the top of the Index globally, with the former ranking first with 84.80 points and the latter fifth with 77.07 points.

The 2023 Government AI Readiness Index, developed by Oxford Insights, expands its scope to rank 193 countries, up from 183 in the 2022 edition, and includes 39 indicators across ten dimensions that make up three pillars: (i) Government, (ii) Technology Sector, (iii) and Data and Infrastructure.

With regard to the Government pillar, a government should have a strategic vision for how it develops and governs AI, supported by appropriate regulations and attention to ethical risks (governance and ethics).

It needs to have strong internal digital capacity, including skills and practices that support its adaptability in the face of new technologies.

In Technology Sector, a government depends on a good supply of AI tools from the country’s technology sector, which needs to be mature enough to provide such supply.

The sector should have high innovation capacity, underpinned by a business environment that supports entrepreneurship and a good flow of R&D spending. Sound levels of human capital - the skills and education of the people working in the sector - are also crucial.

For Data & Infrastructure, AI tools need lots of high-quality data (data availability) which, to avoid bias and error, should also be representative of the citizens in a given country (data representativeness). Finally, this data’s potential cannot be realized without the infrastructure necessary to power AI tools and deliver them to citizens.