# Entity Plan: TS Intel

The central AI development arm of TS Holdings. Spins out of TS Technology Consulting's AI practice in Y2 Q4 when the practice reaches $500K+ ARR (per D20 spin-out playbook). **Commercial-only positioning per D23** — government customers route through TS National AI (Y3 Q4 sibling), never directly through TS Intel. Foundation-model R&D, vertical-AI fine-tunes, and AI capability provider to commercial portfolio entities and external Vietnamese mid-market customers.

The single most strategically central entity for AI flywheel in the portfolio. Its commercial positioning enables international AI investor fundability; its IP licensing relationship with TS National AI is the structural mechanism that protects both arms (per D23).

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## Identity

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Entity name | TS Intel Pte Ltd (Singapore) + TS Intel Vietnam Co. Ltd |
| Group | TS Infrastructure |
| Target launch | Year 2, Q4 (spin-out trigger: TS Tech Consulting AI practice ≥ $500K ARR + named operator-CEO + Series Seed term sheet) |
| Mechanism | Spin-out from TS Technology Consulting (per D20) |
| Tier (D17) | **Tier 3** — commercial only |
| Legal structure | Singapore HoldCo + Vietnam OpCo per D1 |
| Vietnamese majority required | No |

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## Mission and Wedge

**Mission:** Build the AI capability layer that every commercial TS portfolio entity consumes and that mid-market Vietnamese commercial customers can buy as a service — foundation-model R&D, Vietnamese-language specialization, vertical fine-tunes (medical, agricultural, retail, legal commercial), and AI engineering capacity.

**Three product lines:**

1. **Foundation model platform** — Vietnamese-language-specialized models (built on top of Llama, Mistral, Qwen open-weights base); fine-tuning + RAG + agent frameworks; commercial API access
2. **Vertical AI** — applied AI verticals for portfolio entities (TS People matching, Mira forecasting, TS Health diagnostic-augmentation, TS Media content generation) and external commercial customers
3. **AI engineering services** — embedded AI engineers for customer-specific build (high-margin, commercial-only)

**Specific customer wedge:**

- **Internal:** every commercial TS portfolio entity needing AI capability. From Y2 Q4 onward this is the captive customer base — TS People, Mira, TS Media & Creative, eventually Signet, TS Insight (merged Gather AI + Beacon), WarehouseOS, Unit Desk, TS Land, ClearCommand-successor Mira, TS Notary commercial document AI.
- **External:** Vietnamese mid-market commercial customers ($20M–$500M revenue) needing AI capability but unable to build it internally. Sector wedges: F&B/retail (cross-sell with Mira), banking/insurance commercial (cross-sell with TS Block ecosystem), private healthcare (TS Health adjacency).

**Why now:**
- Open-weights foundation models (Llama 4, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek) have reached quality threshold for production Vietnamese-language deployment
- Vietnamese mid-market AI demand growing 50%+ annually; fragmented vendor landscape
- TS Tech Consulting Y2 builds the customer + practice base; spin-out timing aligned with practice scale
- AI talent landscape in Vietnam has matured (significant returnee pool from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR with Vietnamese background)
- LLM + RAG + agent system commoditization at base layer means value capture has shifted to fine-tuning + Vietnamese-specialization + deployment

**Why us:**
- TS Tech Consulting customer relationships provide warm AI handoffs from Day 1
- Captive internal customer base across portfolio = bootstrap revenue + reference customers
- D23 IP licensing to TS National AI provides recurring royalty stream from government-AI demand (without direct gov-customer exposure that would compromise commercial positioning)
- Founder + Senior CEO Recruiter network attracts top Vietnamese AI talent

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## Market and Competition

**Total addressable market (Vietnam, 2026):**
- Vietnamese commercial AI services + platforms: ~$300–500M, growing 45%+ per year
- Foundation-model API consumption in Vietnamese market: $100–200M
- Vertical AI products (sector-specific): $150–300M
- Combined TAM: $550M–$1B; ~40% growth

**Serviceable obtainable market (5-year):** $20–40M ARR realistic

**Named competitors:**

| Competitor | Stage | Strength | Weakness | Differentiation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **VinAI Research** | Vietnamese commercial AI leader | Strong research, LLM development, brand | Captive to Vingroup ecosystem; commercial expansion uneven | Independent + cross-portfolio capability + IP licensing model |
| **FPT AI / FPT Smart Cloud** | Vietnamese tech giant AI arm | Scale, customer access | Project-services DNA, weak platform | Platform-first vs project-shop |
| **Viettel AI** | Military-owned competitor | Technical depth, government-side dominant | Internal focus, weak commercial market | TS Intel commercial-only avoids head-on (gov work goes to TS National AI partnership not competition) |
| **VNG AI / ZaloAI** | VNG captive AI | Production ML, Zalo ecosystem data | Captive to VNG | Open commercial positioning |
| **OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure** | Foreign foundation-model + cloud-AI | Best foundation models, sophisticated platforms | Data-localization friction, premium pricing | Vietnamese-resident + Vietnamese-specialization + price point |
| **Custom in-house AI teams at large Vietnamese corps** | Status quo for some | Captive to use case | Talent cost, capability lag | Lower TCO + faster time-to-value |

**Macro trends:**
- Vietnamese state AI strategy (Resolution 50, National AI Strategy 2030) creates downstream commercial demand
- Decree 13/PDPD makes Vietnamese-resident AI more attractive for compliance
- Vietnamese-language LLM quality genuinely below GPT-class for many tasks → specialization opportunity
- Returnee Vietnamese AI talent pool growing (2024–2027 wave)

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## Customer Strategy

**Ideal Customer Profile (ICP):**
- Internal: every commercial TS portfolio entity (captive)
- External commercial: Vietnamese companies $20M–$500M revenue with existing tech stack and concrete AI use case
- Sectors: F&B / retail / banking commercial / insurance commercial / private healthcare / EdTech / SaaS / e-commerce

**First 10 customer targets (Y2 Q4 – Y3 Q4):**

1. **TS People** (internal) — AI matching for hiring marketplace
2. **Mira** (internal) — AI demand forecasting for F&B chains
3. **TS Tech Consulting** (internal) — AI capability for ongoing customer transformation projects
4. **TS Notary** (Y3) — commercial document AI (deed text generation, contract review for non-sensitive notarial work)
5. **TS Media & Creative** — AI-generated creative briefs, image generation, video editing
6. **External: VPBank commercial AI** — fraud-detection AI for non-regulated workloads
7. **External: Vinamilk supply-chain AI** — forecasting + quality-anomaly detection
8. **External: Masan Consumer commercial-AI** — customer analytics + personalization
9. **External: Sun Group resort AI** — guest-experience AI
10. **External: HSC Securities commercial-AI** — research-augmentation tools (non-regulated)

**Customer acquisition motion:**
- **Y2 Q4–Y3 Q2:** Captive internal portfolio + TS Tech Consulting handoffs
- **Y3 Q3–Y4:** Dedicated commercial AE; sector-vertical sales (banking commercial, healthcare commercial)
- **Y4+:** Channel partnerships with international cloud providers (AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI distributors in Vietnam)

**Pricing model:**
- Foundation-model API: per-token pricing competitive with OpenAI/Anthropic (Vietnamese-resident infrastructure premium acceptable)
- Vertical AI products: $5K–$50K/month per deployment + per-call usage
- AI engineering services: $80–150/hour or fixed-fee projects ($50K–$500K)
- Internal portfolio billing: cost-plus 5% (favorable internal rate; encourages adoption)

**Customer wedge gate (D18):** 3+ committed internal portfolio customers (TS People + Mira + TS Tech Consulting) + 2 external customer LOIs + spin-out from TS Tech Consulting completed cleanly.

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## Capital and Cap Table

**Spin-out structure per D20:**

| Stakeholder | Allocation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| TS Technology Consulting (parent of spin-out) | 50% | Per D20 — parent retains majority at spin-out |
| Operator-CEO + technical co-founder + key team | 22% | Founder-shareholder variant; CEO 14%, technical co-founder 5%, key team 3% |
| ESOP | 15% | Per D3 |
| External Series Seed investors | 13% | At ~$8–12M post-money — international AI VC fundable (Lightspeed, Sequoia India, A16Z India, Insignia, Wavemaker, Vertex) |

**Capital deployment:**
- Y2 Q4 launch: $1–3M (parent-funded carve-out + initial Series Seed of $3–5M targeting $8–12M post-money)
- Y3: $3–5M opex (engineering team scale to 15–25; Vietnamese-language fine-tuning infrastructure)
- Y4 Series A: $10–15M target at $40–80M post-money (Vietnamese language model + vertical AI proof points)
- Y5+: Series B $20–40M

**Performance milestones:**
- **12 months (Y3 Q4):** $1.5M ARR; 5+ commercial customers; first vertical-AI product GA (likely retail-forecasting via Mira)
- **24 months (Y4 Q4):** $5M ARR; 20+ commercial customers; Series A closed
- **36 months (Y5 Q4):** $12M+ ARR; vertical-AI spin-out evaluation per D20 (TS Medical AI candidate Y5)

**Capital gate (D18):** Series Seed term sheet signed; spin-out cap table negotiated with TS Tech Consulting board (founder personally chairs).

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## Operator-CEO Profile

**Required:**
- 10+ years applied AI / ML engineering at production scale
- Has shipped foundation-model or large-scale ML products with paying customers
- Vietnamese national OR Vietnamese-background returnee
- Comfortable with both research and commercial operations (rare combination)
- English fluent for international vendor + investor relations

**Likely sourcing channels:**
- **VinAI Research senior researchers** (highest-probability — VinAI alumni have applied AI + Vietnamese context combined)
- **FPT AI / FPT Smart Cloud directors and VPs** with broader-than-FPT commercial ambition
- **Returnees from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR, Microsoft Research** with Vietnamese ethnic background
- **VNG AI / ZaloAI engineering leadership**
- **Founders of failed Vietnamese AI startups** (Cinnamon AI alumni, etc.)
- **Sky Mavis / Coin98 ML team** (crypto-AI is over, talent available)

**CTO / technical co-founder:** ML research-led complement to commercially-oriented CEO; or vice versa. Same sourcing channels.

**Compensation:** Founder-shareholder variant. CEO 14% + cash $130–180K base + bonus. CTO 5% + cash $100–140K + bonus.

**CEO gate (D18):** CIR engagement from Y2 Q2 (~6 months pre-launch). Offer signed Y2 Q3.

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## Founding Team

| Role | When | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Operator-CEO | Y2 Q3 close | Founder-shareholder variant |
| CTO / Co-founder | Y2 Q3 | Complementary domain |
| Inherited team from TS Tech Consulting AI practice | Y2 Q4 spin-out | 5–8 engineers + 1 PM + 1 customer-success lead |
| Head of Vietnamese-Language Research | Y3 Q1 | Critical specialization hire |
| Senior ML Engineer × 4–6 | Y3 Q1–Q3 | Foundation + vertical fine-tunes |
| Sales / BD Lead (commercial AE) | Y3 Q2 | External customer pipeline |
| Customer Success Lead | Y3 Q2 | Multi-customer support |
| MLOps Engineer × 2 | Y3 Q2–Q3 | Production infrastructure |

**Headcount:** Y2 end: 10–12 · Y3: 25–40 · Y5: 80–120 · Y8: 200–350.

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## Product / Tech Strategy

**MVP scope (6 months post-spin-out — Y3 Q2):**
- Vietnamese-language foundation-model API (built on Llama/Mistral/Qwen + Vietnamese fine-tuning corpus)
- 2 internal vertical-AI products: TS People matching + Mira forecasting
- TS Tech Consulting customer handoffs supported
- Sovereign-AI capability handed off to TS National AI when Y3 Q4 sibling launches (with strict one-way data flow per D23)

**Build vs license:**
- Foundation-model weights: open-weights base (Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek) + proprietary fine-tunes
- Training infrastructure: TS Data Services Commercial Arm (Y3); commercial GPU cloud (AWS, Lambda, CoreWeave) Y2
- Vietnamese-language corpus: proprietary build + license from Vietnamese publishers
- Vertical fine-tunes: built per customer / portfolio entity

**One-way data flow with TS National AI (per D23):**
- TS National AI licenses-in foundation models at 2–4% royalty
- **Gov data, fine-tuned-on-gov-data weights, gov-customer telemetry STAYS in TS National AI** — never flows back
- Annual third-party audit confirms no contamination
- Technical air-gap (separate model registries, separate infrastructure)

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## Go-to-Market

- **Y2 Q4–Y3 Q2:** Captive internal + TS Tech Consulting handoffs; founder + operator-CEO direct relationship sales
- **Y3 Q3+:** Dedicated commercial AE; vertical-sector sales motion; conferences (Vietnam AI Summit, VINASA AI Tech)
- **Channel:** AWS Bedrock partnership; Azure OpenAI distributor in Vietnam; Vietnamese cloud-vendor partnerships (commercial)
- **Marketing:** TS Media + thought leadership on Vietnamese-language AI; Vietnamese AI research publications; open-source contributions to Vietnamese-language model community

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## Milestones

| Horizon | Target |
|---|---|
| Pre-spin-out (Y2 Q3) | CEO + CTO signed; spin-out cap table negotiated; Series Seed term sheet |
| Y2 Q4 (spin-out close) | Spin-out complete; founding team operational; first internal customers active |
| Y3 Q2 | $500K MRR; foundation-model API GA; 2 vertical products live |
| Y3 Q4 | TS National AI sibling launches; IP licensing operational |
| Y4 Q4 | $5M ARR; Series A closed; 20+ commercial customers |
| Y5 Q4 | $12M+ ARR; first vertical-AI spin-out (TS Medical AI candidate) |
| Y8 | $30–50M ARR; international expansion via TS Indonesia/Thailand sub-holdings |

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## Top Risks

1. **Foundation-model commodity squeeze** — open-weights base models commoditize; differentiation must come from Vietnamese-language specialization + vertical fine-tunes + deployment. Mitigation: invest heavily in Vietnamese-language corpus + benchmark leadership.
2. **D23 one-way-flow enforcement failure** — gov data leaks back into commercial models; destroys both TS Intel + TS National AI commercial positioning. Mitigation: technical air-gap + annual audit + contractual enforcement.
3. **AI talent retention** — Vietnamese AI talent has 25%+ annual attrition; tooling vendors aggressively recruit. Mitigation: above-market base + meaningful ESOP + ongoing research budget + publication freedom.
4. **VinAI competitive response** — if VinAI accelerates commercial expansion (post-Vingroup-restructuring), direct competition for talent + customers. Mitigation: TS Tech Consulting customer base as moat; vertical-AI depth that VinAI lacks.

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## Cross-portfolio synergies

| Internal | Direction |
|---|---|
| TS Tech Consulting | Parent at spin-out; customer pipeline source |
| TS People, Mira, TS Notary, TS Media & Creative, TS Health, TS Education, Signet, TS Insight, WarehouseOS, Unit Desk | Commercial AI capability provider |
| TS National AI (Y3 Q4) | Licenses foundation models with one-way data flow per D23 (significant royalty stream Y4+) |
| TS Data Services Commercial (Y3) | Cloud infrastructure provider |
| TS Field (Y4) | Commercial drone-imagery AI (sensitive imagery routes through TS National AI) |
| TS Shared Services | Cost-plus 8% |
| TS Brand & IP Holdings | Trademark license + holds foundational AI patents if any filed |

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## Tier 3 — no additional requirements

Standard D6 / D7 disciplines. PDPD applies (handling personal data for commercial customers). No state-secret handling at TS Intel (gov data goes through TS National AI per D23).

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## Exit scenarios

| Scenario | Probability | Outcome | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| IPO success (international AI listing, Singapore SGX) | 5–10% | $500M–$1.5B valuation | Y7–Y8 |
| Strategic sale to international AI / cloud (Anthropic, Cohere, Hugging Face regional buyout) | 15–20% | $200–500M | Y5–Y7 |
| Vietnamese strategic sale (FPT, VNG) | 15–20% | $150–350M | Y5–Y7 |
| Sustained portfolio entity | 30–40% | $10–20M ARR; cash-generative | Y4+ |
| Stall | 15–20% | Sub-scale; absorbed back | Y4–Y5 |
| Fail | 5–10% | Wind-down | Y3–Y4 |

**5-year target (75th percentile):** $80–250M valuation
**8-year target (75th percentile):** $300–700M valuation

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## Dependencies and gating

- Spin-out from TS Tech Consulting per D20 (parent retains 50%)
- TS Tech Consulting AI practice ≥ $500K ARR (gating trigger)
- Operator-CEO + CTO signed
- Series Seed term sheet from international AI VC
- 3+ internal portfolio customer commitments + 2 external customer LOIs

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## Related documents

- [../aggressive-8-year-growth-plan.md](../aggressive-8-year-growth-plan.md) — Y2 Q4 position
- [../operator-ceo-recruiting.md](../operator-ceo-recruiting.md)
- [ts-technology-consulting.md](ts-technology-consulting.md) — parent at spin-out
- [ts-national-ai.md](ts-national-ai.md) — Y3 Q4 sibling; IP licensing relationship per D23
- [../../notes/decisions.md](../../notes/decisions.md) — D1, D3, D5 (IP framework — central), D8, D20 (spin-out playbook), D23 (commercial/gov split)