This was the message from Pham Duc Long, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, at the conference reviewing the 2021-2025 program to promote and support IPv6 migration for state agencies and to launch the IPv6-only program for 2026-2030, held on 18/6/2026 in Ho Chi Minh City.
Conference overview.
After nearly 30 years of the Internet's presence in Vietnam, its role has changed fundamentally. In the early period, the Internet mainly served connectivity and information exchange; today, economic activity and many aspects of social life run on the Internet as their foundation.
According to Deputy Minister Pham Duc Long, the Internet is no longer merely technical or connectivity infrastructure; it has become infrastructure for economic and social growth and development. As administration, production, business, transactions and social interaction increasingly take place in the digital environment, connectivity capacity directly determines how far a country can expand its development space.
In this context, the shift from IPv4 to IPv6 is inevitable. IPv6 not only addresses the growing demand for Internet addresses but, more importantly, creates a scalable connectivity environment that meets the connection needs of people, data, devices, and intelligent systems.
The Deputy Minister emphasized that IPv6 is the foundation for creating new development space for Vietnam in the digital environment. This vast connectivity space will help give rise to new industries, sectors, business models, and growth drivers, thereby creating additional room for the country's development.
In the coming period, Internet infrastructure must be secure, reliable and scalable, and ready to meet the demands of data, artificial intelligence, innovation and other strategic technologies. Data and artificial intelligence can only be exploited effectively when they are connected and shared over sufficiently capable digital infrastructure. IPv6 must be treated as a baseline requirement from the moment digital infrastructure, platforms and services are invested in or upgraded.
According to figures presented at the conference, Vietnam's IPv6 adoption has reached about 70% — seventh in the world and second in ASEAN, and 1.6 times the global average — with roughly 95 million broadband internet subscribers running on IPv6. 86% of ministries, sectors and localities have migrated their information portals, public service portals and internet-connected systems to IPv6, and 73% have planned their networks around independent IP addressing and autonomous system numbers.
The Conference also included the launch ceremony for the IPv6-Only program, laying the groundwork for a gradual shift from the parallel IPv4/IPv6 model to an environment running primarily on IPv6.
Deputy Minister Pham Duc Long presenting certificates of merit from the Minister of Science and Technology to teams and individuals for outstanding work on IPv6 adoption in 2021-2025.
Source: Communications Centre, Ministry of Science and Technology
