Organizer: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute

Type/Location: Virtual

Description:

Vietnam’s emergence as an AI actor is increasingly—and misleadingly—viewed through a US–China binary that reduces smaller states to mere sites of great-power competition. This webinar challenges that reductive framing by examining how Vietnam actively shapes its position within and beyond this geopolitical divide. Rather than choosing sides, Vietnam pursues a series of calibrated engagements: adopting external technologies, nurturing domestic innovation, and preserving room for strategic manoeuvre amid shifting political and economic pressures. The analysis sheds light on the infrastructural and institutional conditions that underpin this balancing act and its limits. By situating Vietnam’s AI strategy within broader debates about technological sovereignty and dependency, the webinar reconsiders how smaller states exercise agency in a landscape increasingly defined by competing technological superpowers.

About the Speaker:

Dang Nguyen is a Bellwether Scholar at the School of Information, University of California, Berkeley. Their research examines how digital media, AI systems, and technological infrastructures take shape under conditions of constraint, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia and platform economies.

Dang has provided commentary for a range of international outlets, including ABC News (Australia), Triple R Radio (Australia), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA), Rest of World (USA), and ARTE (France). Their books include Digital Research Methods and the Diaspora (Routledge, 2023) and Internet Cures (Bristol University Press, 2024). Dang has also published widely in leading journals such as New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, Media, Culture & Society, International Journal of Communication, Social Science & Medicine, and Health & Place.

Registration:

To attend the event virtually, please register here.