Science and technology
In 2010, Vietnam's total state spending on science and technology amounted to roughly 0.45% of its GDP.[322] Vietnamese scientists have made many significant contributions in various fields of study, most notably in mathematics. Hoàng Tụy pioneered the applied mathematics field of global optimisation in the 20th century,[323] while Ngô Bảo Châu won the 2010 Fields Medal for his proof of fundamental lemma in the theory of automorphic forms.[324][325] Since the establishment of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) by the government in 1975, the country is working to develop its first national space flight programme especially after the completion of the infrastructure at the Vietnam Space Centre (VSC) in 2018.[326][327] Vietnam has also made significant advances in the development of robots, such as the TOPIO humanoid model.[320][321] One of Vietnam's main messaging apps, Zalo, was developed by Vương Quang Khải, a Vietnamese hacker who later worked with the country's largest information technology service company, the FPT Group.[328]
According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Vietnam devoted 0.19% of its GDP to science research and development in 2011.[329] Vietnam was ranked 44th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024, it has increased its ranking considerably since 2012, where it was ranked 76th.[330][331] Between 2005 and 2014, the number of Vietnamese scientific publications recorded in Thomson Reuters' Web of Science increased at a rate well above the average for Southeast Asia, albeit from a modest starting point.[332] Publications focus mainly on life sciences (22%), physics (13%) and engineering (13%), which is consistent with recent advances in the production of diagnostic equipment and shipbuilding.[332]