Building a hybrid world: three ambitions with 6G to supercharge Vietnam’s path to a top digital economy
Xem Tiếng Việt 
By Steve Long, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Intel Asia Pacific and Japan
Vietnam has come a long way in advancing telecommunication and technology. Once restricted to crackled voice calls, people around the nation are now just a button-tap away from connecting with family and friends.
While Vietnam’s 5G roll-out is underway this year, with businesses starting to envision 5G enterprise use cases, the country has also cast its gaze at 6G. With the recent establishment of the 6G Steering Committee led by Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, Minister of Information and Communications, the committee has been convened to provide direction for 6G development to get ahead of the future curve.
While this kind of proactiveness and forward-thinking is laudable, it requires close public and private partnerships to make things happen. For example, Intel is in collaboration with the European Union (EU) and its 6G flagship research project called Hexa-X – a collaborative initiative to frame the 6G research agenda, which will set the stage for the technology that will be developed to make 6G a reality by 2030.
And the possibilities of 6G that we are exploring are awe-inspiring.
With the potential to achieve speed much faster than 5G network, this new near-instant wireless technology will see the convergence of communications, computing and AI, where they will be natively integrated into the 6G system instead of just running as an application on top of network infrastructure. Users will be able to access almost infinite compute power and AI/ML resources through Compute-as-a-Service (CaaS) and AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) interfaces, and truly enable a hybrid world.
As Intel draws its innovation roadmap to all that the 6G era is set to deliver, with an interconnection of the human, physical and digital worlds – we have also defined a set of three bold ambitions that will be supercharged by 6G, and will help realize Vietnam’s goal in becoming a leading digital economy in the decades to come.
Ambition one: A healthier world
The pandemic has ensured that health has sat atop the global agenda in recent years, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Vietnam’s own Covid experience, with prolonged Social Distancing periods in 2021 saw the growth and acceptance of remote and smart healthcare.
In a nation where healthcare had long depended on over-crowded public hospitals to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases, the pandemic forced both a technological and mindset change in healthcare delivery – even if it was as simple as online consultations with doctors for routine check-ups. This sets an important precedent that will pivot the nation that has long faced a clear divide in the accessibility of healthcare between urban and remote communities.
In a hybrid world, 6G could allow in-body devices to communicate with wearables to enable 24/7 monitoring of vital parameters for both the healthy and the sick with secure online data transfer, and offer precision healthcare which is able to take the individual variability in genes, environment and lifestyle of each person into consideration.
Wearable, remote technology could also help support those with vision impairments to navigate the world. Wearables equipped with sensors could be leveraged to infer and identify objects, street furniture and other possible hazards so that users are informed in advance and take proactive measures. Or perhaps the convergence of communications, computers and AI also has the potential to support image processing. For example, if an image was taken of a patient’s skin, an AI service following the AIaaS concept could instantly identify whether there is a suspicious pattern relating to skin cancer.
Ambition two: A more collaborative world
6G’s near-instant wireless technology has the potential to open the door to a heightened world of digital collaboration.
Through design and the use of digital twins, which is the virtual representation of the physical world updated in real-time, 6G could also unlock the unprecedented levels of collaboration needed to truly realize smart cities – a sector which Vietnam has prioritized and planned for nationally. By facilitating data sharing across a city’s ecosystem, the digital twin approach can enable collaboration among city planners, construction workers, energy suppliers and citizens themselves through the uses of simulation, machine learning and reasoning to help with decision making.
In conjunction with real-time feedback from the physical world and its associated assets, the digital twin city model could be a powerful tool for future evolution and planning as well as enhanced and efficient operations of Vietnam’s future smart cities.
Underpinned by 6G, we hope these digital replicas will allow us to optimize traffic flow, build houses capable of withstanding predicted extreme weather events, and drive seamless public transport operations.
With Vietnam’s rapid commercialization with global brands in full swing, 6G-enabled mixed reality and holographic telepresence can enable remote collaborations, consultation, and e-learning in a more immersive way. These interactions of tomorrow could even include haptic connections — communication involving touch as well as sight and sound. Picture the possibilities that could potentially bring to Vietnam’s manufacturing sector and to its educational institutions.
Ambition three: For a more sustainable world
Key for Vietnam to meet its COP-26 commitments to net-zero by 2050 will be the country’s ability to harness all available technologies to reduce its carbon footprint, and 6G enabled technologies will be instrumental.
6G could allow us to deploy energy-harvesting sensors anywhere with cost-effective connectivity, providing an invaluable near-real-time monitoring of system-critical environmental aspects such as weather, climate change or biodiversity.
Such technology could prove critical for some of Vietnam’s low-lying areas such as the Mekong Delta, which the rising sea-levels and increased salinization of waterways present imminent threats to lives and livelihoods.
A global telemetry system can also be used to further improve climate models, provide surveillance and monitoring of environmental status and enable early warning systems for natural disasters such as flooding or landslides, or better protect ecosystems and endangered species from threats such as illegal logging and poaching.
By applying digital twins to more sustainable food production, the health, needs and ailments of crops and livestock can be monitored in real time, autonomously administering nutrients and animal feed to address any threats to increase the yield and reduce waste.Seamless connectivity will unlock a truly hybrid world
Intel’s vision for 6G is not just that it could improve the way people in Vietnam and around the world live their daily lives. By breaking down the siloes between human, physical and digital existences, we can build a more sustainable, collaborative and healthier world.
These ambitions not only set a clear target for us in the industry and research community, but will also inspire more businesses and government entities in Vietnam to work closely together in reaping this amazing technology in the future. 6G will not only be enable a digital revolution, but a societal one for the better.
