The journey to bring Vietnamese technology into the global AI deployment chain

(Dan Tri) - As one of two OpenAI Select Partners in Vietnam, EON Tech creates a breakthrough with the EONSR AI Gateway solution to help large businesses optimize AI performance and data security.

Recently, technology startup EON Tech (trade name EONSR - eONS reImagined) became the second unit in Vietnam to be on the list of global partner network OpenAI Partner Network, next to FPT technology corporation.

This is not only a milestone affirming the position of a Vietnamese startup, but also shows that global technology giants choose partners based on real-world deployment capacity instead of capital scale or business age.

Dan Tri reporter had a conversation with Mr. Ngo Gia Khang, CEO and Mr. Dinh Tuan Huy, Chief Technology Officer of EON Tech to share about this journey.

EON Tech was founded in May 2025 with a relatively modest initial capital. In the first year, how did you and the founders manage financially to both support a team of engineers and have enough technological infrastructure to develop the EONSR AI Gateway solution?

- Mr. Khang: When we don't have many resources in terms of money, we will need to compensate with many other valuable resources. Although EON Tech is a small startup, we have deep connections with partners who are all large businesses and corporations.

Some typical partners of EON Tech include Vietnam National Energy and Industry Group (Petro Vietnam), Saigon Newport Corporation or Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT). We are also the highest level partner of Viettel IDC. Cooperating and working with large businesses brings us a lot of value.

Mr. Ngo Gia Khang, CEO of EON Tech, said that the staff in the early days had only 5 members (Photo: Phuong Quyen).

Before starting a business, I worked for many years at large businesses and corporations. These years have helped us understand what businesses really want and need from AI.

In particular, I am also very lucky to have previously worked in the field of digital transformation, very close to the AI ​​solutions we develop. With the advantage of having worked in large enterprises, we understand the secret pain of our partners.

Next is the young and enthusiastic staff. EON Tech's staff are all between the ages of 9x and 10x. In the beginning, we only had 5 employees, or jokingly called "5 superhero brothers". 15 months later, the number of employees has increased more than 10 times.

I remember 10 years ago when I first started working, the only capital I had was youth and professional knowledge. Even then, professional knowledge was still relatively young. However, when assigned small tasks, I still try to do those small tasks well. Just like that, each brick is built and personal experience becomes more and more rich.

That journey also directly reflects on the startup process at EON Tech. From our relationships and experiences, we gradually build trust with our partners. I think that to achieve success, we don't need a "Big Bang moment", but it comes from persistence.

What reality did the idea come from that made the team choose to develop a fundamental solution like EONSR AI Gateway? During more than 1 year of development, was there a moment when the engineering team encountered a major impasse to the point of giving up, and how did you and your colleagues overcome that barrier?

- Mr. Khang: When talking about "doing AI", each person will have different opinions and perspectives. For EON Tech, we are fortunate to go from digital transformation, so we understand that the root nature of all technology is to increase performance. Therefore, from the beginning we determined our mission to bring AI into everyday work to help corporations optimize work performance.

In daily tasks, most people need a personal assistant to assist them. From specialist levels to senior leadership levels, many jobs are repetitive in nature. At that time, we will need an AI assistant to help us work more effectively.

When everyone uses AI, businesses will have a need for centralized AI management. This is why we focus on the AI ​​Gateway problem. As the name suggests, this is a "one-stop shop".

So why do we need this gate? First, when too many people use AI, it will be almost impossible for businesses to control the costs incurred. Next, businesses need transparency when employees use AI. And finally, this solution helps businesses make the most of collective strength.

Therefore, EON Tech invests all resources to develop Gateway because we know businesses need this service. However, in reality, we also face many different challenges.

First is the financial issue. All costs in the business are money, and we cannot stay optimistic about “a thatched hut”. For example, when it comes to infrastructure investment, we cannot immediately invest massively like other big players in the industry. The ability to optimize costs also becomes more difficult because on a small scale it will be difficult to do this.

Instead, we have to use rolling solutions and compensate with our own resourcefulness. In return, these difficulties also teach our team to become more flexible in situations.

The second difficulty comes from the business itself being a young startup. That's what your partner has to believe in you at first. Luckily, I have had quality relationships as a result of my years of working as an employee. These customers have accompanied and placed their trust in us even when the company had nothing to believe in. That is more valuable than any initial investment.

What were the biggest challenges that EON Tech faced during the qualification process from OpenAI to achieve this title? What advantages does becoming a Select Partner give EON Tech?

- Mr. Huy: We cannot speak for OpenAI's evaluation criteria when choosing EON Tech as a partner. From EON Tech's side, we realize we can improve our team's qualifications through this cooperation. We do not consider this a privilege. Instead, the team focuses on improving their qualifications and skills through documents, training programs and guidance from OpenAI.

Mr. Dinh Tuan Huy, Chief Technology Officer of EON Tech (Photo: Phuong Quyen).

By becoming an OpenAI Select Partner, we have the opportunity to access new technology updates earlier than regular users and businesses. The most important problem is how to appropriately apply technologies from OpenAI to Vietnamese businesses.

Customers in the public sector, large enterprises and state-owned enterprises always consider information security as a "red line". What layers of controls does EONSR AI Gateway put in place to minimize the risk of sensitive data being passed to public AI models and help organizations monitor and address risks?

- Mr. Khang: In today's digital age, data is an asset, access is an asset, and know-how on how to operate is also an asset. For large businesses, their non-tangible assets are larger. To protect our customers' assets, we focus on tightening security and governance through 3 core layers of control.

The first layer of control focuses on data security. All of the organization's data passing through the system must be end-to-end encrypted, including encryption at the beginning and end points and ensuring security throughout the transmission. Once data is stored, whether on physical infrastructure or in the cloud, organizations always know where it is stored and have mechanisms in place to regularly monitor the health of the data to maintain safety.

The second layer of control is responsible for administering access rights. To prevent accessing data for the wrong purpose or leaking information internally, the system sets up many strict authentication gates. Access requires parallel authentication factors according to the principle of "more than enough", ensuring that each employee is only allowed to access the correct and sufficient scope of information under his or her authority.

Mr. Ngo Gia Khang affirmed that data is a valuable asset of every business (Photo: Phuong Quyen).

The third layer of control is the establishment of specialized AI guard rails (Guardrails) combined with human control (Human in the loop). These guard rails help keep AI operating safely within the allowable range, ensuring AI extracts information from genuine sources and minimizing the risk of fabricated information.

At the same time, the system applies a mechanism with human intervention at important checkpoints for approval and direct supervision. Thanks to this, organizations can comprehensively monitor the operating process, ensure security and gain maximum peace of mind when applying AI technology in practice.

Where does EON Tech position itself as a "special weapon" to compete fairly and not be overshadowed by giants in the same industry?

- Mr. Khang: Before achieving OpenAI Select Partner certification, EON Tech was the only Vietnamese partner of Google to achieve dual certification of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Google Marketing Platform (GMP). This is a unique area of ​​professional intersection, because other large businesses in the market often only possess one of these two certificates.

The second advantage comes from the scale of the startup. As a small business, EON Tech has the ability to test new technologies extremely quickly without being hindered by the complex approval processes of large corporations.

In addition, the founders are also people who directly accompany the project. Therefore, the cycle of receiving market feedback and improving solutions can happen immediately instead of lasting months or quarters. Thanks to this speed, we have shortened the multi-year development journey of a typical business into just over a year.

In the country's era of advancement with science, technology and innovation as the focus, what technologies will EON Tech's upcoming technology roadmap focus on to help Vietnamese businesses fully master the ability to deploy and manage AI?

- Mr. Khang: To help Vietnamese businesses fully master the ability to deploy and manage AI in the new era, EON Tech's upcoming technology roadmap will focus all its efforts on investing in a strategic product called EONSR AI Gateway.

EON Tech said that the company will devote all its efforts to continue developing AI Gateway (Photo: Phuong Quyen).

This is positioned as an inevitable gateway and a mandatory station that every large enterprise must go through on the journey to transform into an AI-powered enterprise. This system acts as a "one-stop shop" to help completely solve major business challenges, from developing sustainable AI, optimally controlling costs to ensuring transparency and data security.

The specific technology roadmap for AI Gateway will focus on two core directions. In particular, the technology part focuses on tightening the level of transparency, information security and data management. With a business philosophy of not only selling technology but also "peace of mind", EON Tech focuses on building a truly reliable AI system that does not fabricate data but only accurately extracts information from the original source. This focus on information security governance helps businesses address their biggest security concerns and operate AI effectively.

Along with security, EON Tech's second technology orientation is to maximize the breadth of the ecosystem. AI Gateway will be diversely integrated with a series of world-leading models, from commercial models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude to open source models and even specific AI models indigenous to Vietnam.

This solution helps free businesses from dependence on any specific technology provider, giving them the freedom to choose, self-evaluate and decide on the tool that best suits their daily business problems.

Thank you for sharing from both of you.

Content: The Anh