AI readiness assessment / ARI
AI investors don't ask what incentives you offer. They ask how ready your province is.
Backup power, computing infrastructure, engineers and the speed of processing applications have become prerequisites. Provinces that answer with data will be chosen. Provinces that answer with tax incentives will be passed over. ARI shows where your province is strong and weak before investors score it themselves.
ARI (AI Readiness Index) is an index proposed by Trần Tấn Sỹ in the book AI Economy, helping a province or city self-assess its capacity to attract AI capital, technology and talent across 8 weighted pillars. Each pillar is scored from 1 to 5; the total score ranges from 1.0 to 5.0.
The country is slipping in the rankings, so each province must speed up.
According to UNCTAD's Frontier Technologies Readiness Index (2024 data), Vietnam ranks 64th of 170, down 11 places from 2022. It ranks 15th in the Finance component but 120th in Skills. Capital may come, but the people to operate AI infrastructure are lacking. The race between provinces will be decided at exactly these bottlenecks.
Eight pillars
| Pillar | Weight | Core criteria |
|---|---|---|
| 01. Energy and clean energy | 20% | Backup power capacity for large projects; share of renewable energy; grid connection time |
| 02. Computing and AI infrastructure | 15% | Data centers meeting international standards; access to GPUs and cloud computing |
| 03. Connectivity and digital infrastructure | 10% | Fiber density and redundancy; regional connection latency |
| 04. Workforce and talent ecosystem | 15% | Technical and IT training institutions; university–business links |
| 05. Data and governance | 10% | Level of digitization of administrative data; digital one-stop mechanism for investment procedures |
| 06. Capital and startup ecosystem | 10% | Local investment funds or credit guarantees for technology companies |
| 07. Smart infrastructure and next-generation industrial parks | 15% | Share of industrial parks meeting infrastructure standards for AI Factories (per ARI-IP™) |
| 08. Overall ecosystem | 5% | Level of inter-agency coordination in processing high-tech investment applications |
How to read the score
Each pillar is scored from 1 (no foundation) to 5 (internationally competitive). The total score is for comparison and tracking progress, not for declaring “ready”. A province scoring high on seven pillars but weak on energy will still lose large AI Factory projects, because without power nothing else is worth discussing.
ARI assessment session with an expert
- Agree on the scope and participants from departments and agencies.
- Score the 8 pillars independently and cross-check the data.
- Analyze score gaps and choose the two pillars to invest in first.
- Compare with UNCTAD's independent international index for an objective view.
The expert assessment session is free. Take the online survey first so the meeting goes straight to the bottlenecks.
FAQ
How does ARI differ from the EAR Index™?
ARI measures a province; the EAR Index™ measures a company. Both use a weighted 1–5 scale.
Does ARI rank provinces?
No ranking is published. ARI is for a province to look at itself and track progress over time.
Can the weights be adjusted?
Yes. The book states clearly that they can be adjusted to each province's context.
Is ARI an official index?
No. ARI is a diagnostic tool developed by the author (version 1.0, August 2026), not a ranking or a legal basis.
Sources: AI Economy, Chapter 8 and Appendix A; UNCTAD, Technology and Innovation Report 2025.