Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communications announced in February 2026 that software and IT services exports crossed $8.2 billion in 2025 — a 24% increase from $6.6B in 2024, and a near-doubling from $4.3B in 2022. The headline number matters, but the composition of that growth is even more telling: AI and advanced technology services now account for 31% of total IT export revenue, up from 11% in 2023.
This compositional shift — from commodity code outsourcing toward AI services and platform development — represents a structural upgrade in Vietnam's position in the global technology value chain. The countries that succeed in software exports over the next decade will be those that move up the value stack. Vietnam is doing exactly that.
The Companies Leading the Export Growth
FPT Software remains Vietnam's largest IT exporter, reporting $1.2B in software revenue for 2025 with AI services growing 87% YoY. FPT has established AI centres of excellence in Hanoi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City, and now employs over 2,400 ML engineers and AI developers — the largest AI engineering workforce of any Vietnam-headquartered technology company.
KMS Technology crossed $300M in annual revenue in 2025, with AI quality assurance and intelligent testing automation accounting for 40% of new business wins. The company's QualityOps platform — which uses AI to automate test generation, execution, and analysis — is now deployed by 200+ US and Australian software companies.
Nashtech (formerly Harvey Nash Vietnam) reported AI-related revenue doubling in 2025, driven by demand from European financial services and insurance clients for AI model development and MLOps implementation services. The company's Manchester and Dublin offices act as client-facing hubs, while 85% of technical delivery occurs in Vietnam.
The Japan Connection
A frequently underappreciated dimension of Vietnam's IT export story is the Japan-Vietnam technology relationship. Japan accounts for 32% of Vietnam's software export revenue — the largest single country market — and this relationship is deepening as Japanese enterprises accelerate digital transformation under regulatory and competitive pressure.
Vietnam's appeal for Japanese clients goes beyond cost. Cultural alignment (both societies emphasise quality, precision, and long-term partnership), the large Vietnamese-Japanese bilingual developer community (estimated 45,000 developers with business-level Japanese proficiency), and accumulated domain knowledge in Japanese business processes make Vietnam the natural offshore technology partner for Japan in ways that India or Eastern Europe cannot replicate.
The $20B Target: Is It Achievable?
Vietnam's National Strategy for Digital Government targets $20B in IT service exports by 2030. At 2025's growth rate, the target implies CAGR of roughly 18% — achievable if current momentum is sustained and the compositional shift toward AI and higher-value services continues.
The risks to this trajectory are real: AI-driven automation may reduce demand for some categories of outsourced development work; Vietnam's rapidly rising developer salaries are compressing cost advantages in lower-end services; and talent supply, while growing, may not scale fast enough to meet global demand at the high-skill end.
But the structural tailwinds are strong. Global demand for AI services is growing faster than any country's supply can keep pace. Vietnam's combination of scale, quality trajectory, and value is unique in the global market. The $20B target is ambitious but not unreasonable — and the country is building the foundations to reach it.