VinAI Research

VinAI Research is the artificial intelligence research subsidiary of Vingroup, the largest Vietnamese conglomerate by market capitalization, with operations spanning real estate (Vinhomes), retail (Vincom Retail), automotive (VinFast, the publicly traded electric-vehicle manufacturer), healthcare (Vinmec), education (VinUniversity), and adjacent sectors. Vingroup was founded in 1993 by Pham Nhat Vuong, Vietnam's wealthiest individual. VinAI was founded in April 2019 in Hanoi by Bui Hai Hung, the former senior research scientist at Google DeepMind and previously at Google Research with substantive publication output on speech recognition, dialogue, and reinforcement learning. VinAI develops Vietnamese-language NLP and computer-vision research alongside applied AI cooperation with Vingroup operating subsidiaries, with the principal public outputs being the PhoBERT and PhoGPT Vietnamese-language open-weights model lines and the autonomous-driving research that supports VinFast electric vehicles. As of April 2026, VinAI Research is the principal Vietnamese AI research organization and one of the more visible Southeast Asian industrial AI subsidiaries.

At a glance

• Founded: April 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam, by Bui Hai Hung with Vingroup backing.
• Status: Wholly owned research subsidiary of Vingroup. Vingroup is publicly traded on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (VIC).
• Funding: Operates within Vingroup's research-and-development budget. Vingroup reported approximately VND 192 trillion (approximately $7.7 billion) in 2024 revenue.
• CEO: Bui Hai Hung, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of VinAI Research. PhD computer science (Hanoi University of Science and Technology and University of New South Wales). Former senior research scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research; published research on speech recognition, dialogue systems, and reinforcement learning.
• Other notable leadership: Senior research and engineering leadership across the Vietnamese-NLP, computer vision, autonomous-driving, and applied AI program areas. The research-team build-out has included Vietnamese AI researchers returning from international AI labs and recruits from Hanoi University of Science and Technology and Vietnam National University.
• Open weights: Yes. PhoBERT and PhoGPT released open-weights through GitHub and Hugging Face. Selected adjacent research outputs also open-source.
• Flagship outputs: PhoBERT (Vietnamese-language BERT-derived model, released September 2020 in two sizes); PhoGPT (Vietnamese-language generative foundation model, released November 2023); autonomous-driving research integrated with VinFast vehicles; published research at NeurIPS, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, CVPR, and adjacent AI venues.

Origins

VinAI Research was founded in April 2019 in Hanoi by Bui Hai Hung with Vingroup backing. Bui had spent the prior years as a senior research scientist at Google Research and Google DeepMind, with publication output on speech recognition, dialogue systems, and reinforcement learning at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, and adjacent venues. The Vingroup backing reflected Pham Nhat Vuong's broader strategic positioning of Vingroup as a Vietnamese national champion across multiple economic sectors, with VinAI Research as the AI investment within that conglomerate-scale strategy.

The founding period anchored research in two principal directions. First, Vietnamese-language NLP research, addressing the underrepresentation of Vietnamese language in the broader academic AI literature relative to English, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Second, autonomous-driving research, anchored in cooperation with VinFast (the Vingroup automotive subsidiary that had launched as a Vietnamese electric-vehicle manufacturer in 2017 and that subsequently expanded internationally with a NASDAQ listing in August 2023).

The September 2020 release of PhoBERT in two sizes (PhoBERT-base 135M parameters and PhoBERT-large 370M parameters) was the company's first internationally visible research output. PhoBERT was characterized in Vietnamese-NLP research coverage as the principal Vietnamese-language pre-trained BERT-derived model, with open-weights distribution through GitHub and Hugging Face and substantial download volume from Vietnamese academic and industry researchers.

The November 2023 release of PhoGPT (a 7-billion-parameter Vietnamese-language generative foundation model) extended the line into the foundation-model era. PhoGPT was released open-weights with detailed methodology documentation, positioning VinAI as the principal Vietnamese-language open-weights foundation-model contributor.

The autonomous-driving research has supported VinFast vehicle development through 2019 to 2026, with VinAI engineers contributing perception, planning, and adjacent driver-assistance capabilities to the broader VinFast engineering organization. VinFast launched US deliveries through 2023 and 2024 with the VF 8 and VF 9 SUV models; subsequent VinFast vehicle programs have continued to integrate VinAI-developed AI capabilities.

The 2024 to 2026 period has continued Vietnamese-language NLP and autonomous-driving research output alongside continued open-weights releases of selected research outputs.

Mission and strategy

VinAI Research's stated mission is to advance Vietnamese-language AI capability and to support Vingroup operating-subsidiary applied-AI requirements. The strategy combines three threads. First, Vietnamese-language NLP research, with PhoBERT and PhoGPT as the principal flagship outputs and continued open-weights commitment to anchor academic-research-community engagement. Second, autonomous-driving research in cooperation with VinFast, providing the AI capabilities that the EV product line requires. Third, applied AI integration across the broader Vingroup product line including Vinhomes (real estate), Vincom Retail (retail), Vinmec (healthcare), and adjacent operating subsidiaries.

The competitive premise is that Vietnamese-language AI capability requires sustained domestic-research investment that international AI organizations have not historically prioritized, and that an in-house Vietnamese research organization with frontier-AI-lab-credibility leadership can produce capabilities that anchor Vietnamese AI development for a generation.

Models and products

• PhoBERT. Vietnamese-language BERT-derived pre-trained model. Released September 2020 in PhoBERT-base (135M) and PhoBERT-large (370M) variants. Open-weights through GitHub and Hugging Face.
• PhoGPT. Vietnamese-language generative foundation model. Released November 2023. Approximately 7-billion parameters. Open-weights distribution.
• Autonomous-driving research. Perception, planning, and adjacent driver-assistance capabilities for VinFast electric vehicles.
• Applied AI for Vingroup operating subsidiaries. Including Vinhomes, Vincom Retail, Vinmec, and adjacent applied-AI integrations.
• Active research publication record. At NeurIPS, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, CVPR, and adjacent AI venues.

Distribution channels combine Vingroup operating-subsidiary applied-AI integration (the primary commercial channel), open-weights releases through GitHub and Hugging Face, and academic publication.

Benchmarks and standing

VinAI Research's evaluation framework focuses on Vietnamese-language NLP benchmarks (Vietnamese GLUE, ZALO Challenge, and Vietnamese-language ASR benchmarks) and applied-AI integration metrics for Vingroup operating subsidiaries. PhoBERT and PhoGPT have been characterized in Vietnamese-language NLP industry coverage as the principal Vietnamese-language open-weights foundation-model lines.

Industry coverage has consistently characterized VinAI Research as the principal Vietnamese AI research organization, with the founder-team Google DeepMind credibility, the Vingroup conglomerate backing, and the dual research-and-applied-AI mission as principal validating data points.

Leadership

As of April 2026, VinAI Research's senior leadership includes:

• Bui Hai Hung, Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
• Senior research and engineering leadership across the Vietnamese-NLP, computer vision, autonomous-driving, and applied-AI program areas.

Funding and backers

Operates within Vingroup's research-and-development budget. Vingroup reported approximately VND 192 trillion (approximately $7.7 billion) in 2024 revenue. Specific VinAI Research budget allocations are not separately disclosed.

Industry position

VinAI Research occupies a distinctive position as the principal Vietnamese AI research organization and one of the more visible Southeast Asian industrial AI subsidiaries, with the multi-year Vietnamese-NLP research output, the VinFast autonomous-driving cooperation, and the open-weights research-community contribution. Industry coverage has consistently grouped VinAI Research with AI Singapore and adjacent Southeast Asian AI research organizations as the principal regional AI capability investments outside Singapore's commercial AI ecosystem.

The structural risks are two. First, Vingroup's broader commercial trajectory has been mixed — VinFast has faced significant financial challenges since the August 2023 NASDAQ listing, with continued operating losses and capital-raising pressure. Second, the Vietnamese-domestic-language AI market is small relative to international addressable AI markets, which structurally limits the standalone-commercial-scale opportunity for VinAI relative to peer AI organizations operating in larger language markets.

Competitive landscape

• AI Singapore, Krutrim, Sarvam AI, AI4Bharat. Asia-Pacific national-and-domestic-language AI peers.
• Hugging Face, Cohere for AI (Aya), BigScience (BLOOM), Masakhane. Open-research multilingual AI peer organizations.
• Naver Cloud, Kakao Brain, LG AI Research, Samsung Research / SAIT. Korean industrial AI research peers.
• Preferred Networks, Sakana AI, Matsuo Lab, Fujitsu Research. Japanese AI peers.
• Tencent Hunyuan, Alibaba Qwen / DAMO, Baidu, DeepSeek. Chinese AI organizations whose open-weights releases shape regional AI infrastructure availability.

Outlook

• The continued cadence of PhoBERT and PhoGPT iteration through 2026 to 2027.
• Continued autonomous-driving research-cooperation with VinFast.
• The Vingroup commercial trajectory and any restructuring that affects VinAI Research's operating context.
• Continued Vietnamese-language AI research output and open-weights distribution.

Sources

• VinAI Research official site. Subsidiary reference.
• PhoBERT on GitHub. Vietnamese-language pre-trained model.
• PhoGPT on GitHub. Vietnamese-language generative model.
• Vingroup parent company. Parent company reference.
• Bui Hai Hung LinkedIn. Founder reference.
• Pham Nhat Vuong Wikipedia. Vingroup founder reference.