Vietnam is emerging as an attractive hub for next-generation data center investment, poised to meet the surging demands of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the coming years.
Speaking at the opening of the Data Center & Cloud Infrastructure Summit (DCCI Summit) 2026, organized by Viettel IDC on April 20, Mr. Le Ba Tan, CEO of Viettel IDC, highlighted the sustained positive growth of the Vietnamese data center market.
Thanks to a variety of favorable policies from the Party and the Government regarding land use, electricity, and tax incentives, Vietnam’s investment climate is becoming increasingly competitive. This has led to a wave of new data center projects scheduled for deployment in major metropolitan hubs such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
According to data presented at the summit, the global data center market is projected to reach $627.4 billion by 2030, with the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region accounting for $174.8 billion. Regarding average market growth rates, Mr. Tan pointed out that while the global rate is 8.8% and APAC is 9.3%, Southeast Asia is expanding at approximately 14%.
"Vietnam is situated in a high-growth region for data centers, with a growth rate 1.5 times higher than the global average," said Mr. Tan.
Currently, there are approximately 11,000 data centers worldwide. However, specialized AI Data Centers, while accounting for less than 1% of the total number, already consume 25% of the industry’s total power. This reflects the massive "energy thirst" of AI—a trend expected to intensify over the next decade, when AI Data Centers could account for up to half of the entire sector's energy consumption.
The APAC region has plans to deploy approximately 19.4 GW of AI-related data center capacity, of which 3.7 GW is already under construction (roughly 20% of the target).
Many "Big Tech" giants are shifting their infrastructure toward Southeast Asia, signaling the region’s high appeal for data center relocation, said Mr. Tan.
In Vietnam, the total data center capacity currently stands at approximately 104 MW and is forecasted to increase five to six-fold, reaching nearly 600 MW by 2030.
Numerous large-scale projects are being fast-tracked, not only by domestic firms like Viettel but also by major international investors such as G42 and Microsoft, with significant deployment plans set for Ho Chi Minh City in the 2026–2027 period.
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