Key takeaways

  • February 2026 saw G42, FPT and Viet Thai announce a partnership that could bring up to US$2 billion into a Ho Chi Minh City data‑centre complex.
  • A March 2026 joint venture between Accelerated Infrastructure Capital and Kinh Bac Urban Development disclosed an AI‑focused facility valued at roughly US$2.1 billion.
  • Starmason committed US$480.26 million in late April 2026 for a centre designed for a 60 MW IT load.
  • The Evolution‑Hathor‑Frontier consortium invested US$508.78 million in a separate project with a 52 MW IT capacity.
  • Reported operational capacity in Vietnam ranges from 73 MW to 104 MW depending on the source.
  • One forecast projects the market to reach ~600 MW by 2030 (a 5‑6× rise); another, from Savills, expects ~950 MW by the same year.
  • The MViSTA submarine fibre‑optic cable links Vietnam with Singapore, Johor and Thailand and is regarded as a key international gateway.
  • APAC‑wide future supply totals 4.8 GW under construction and 21.7 GW in the planning stage; Southeast Asia supplies roughly 50 % of that construction pipeline.

Vietnam’s AI‑driven data‑centre surge is now intersecting with a fragile piece of the region’s digital backbone – its submarine cable network. While capital inflows are soaring, the reliance on a limited set of under‑sea links creates a non‑trivial risk for latency‑sensitive workloads.

1. Capital pipeline and megawatt‑scale projects

The first half of 2026 alone produced four headline‑size announcements:

  • A February partnership between the UAE‑based G42, Vietnam’s FPT and Viet Thai outlined a US$2 billion investment envelope for a new data‑centre campus in Ho Chi Minh City’s high‑tech park.
  • In March, Accelerated Infrastructure Capital together with Kinh Bac Urban Development launched an AI‑centric data‑centre plan valued at about US$2.1 billion.
  • Starmason entered the market in late April by pledging US$480.26 million to a complex that will support up to 60 MW of IT load.
  • The Evolution, Hathor and Frontier group, operating out of Singapore, earmarked US$508.78 million for a facility built to a 52 MW IT‑load specification and to meet Tier‑III+ standards.

Each of these projects targets the power‑intensive demands of modern AI models and cloud services, and together they illustrate how quickly the investment landscape is changing.

2. Power availability – the emerging site‑selection filter

Industry observers repeatedly point to electricity as the new decisive factor for data‑centre siting. Andrew Green of Cushman & Wakefield notes that investors are now “constrained by access to electricity.” This mirrors data from local sources that cite 73 MW of currently operating capacity and an additional 137 MW projected to come online by 2030. The same outlets also highlight a 2‑3‑year lead time for securing new power for a 100 MW facility, underscoring the challenge of aligning grid upgrades with fast‑moving capital projects.

Vietnam’s international bandwidth hinges on a handful of under‑sea routes. The MViSTA submarine fibre‑optic cable, which reaches Singapore, Johor and Thailand, is identified as a key overseas conduit. Analysts stress that large‑scale data centres “need reliable international Internet connections, particularly submarine cables and stable landing stations.” The dependence on this single cable family means that any service interruption could force operators to shift traffic onto secondary paths, potentially stretching the network’s latency envelope – a concern for AI training jobs that rely on rapid data exchange across borders.

4. Capacity forecasts – two competing outlooks

The market’s growth trajectory is captured by two independent projections:

Source2025 baseline2030 outlook
Viettel IDC (CEO Le Ba Tan)104 MW (current)~600 MW (5‑6× increase)
Savills Vietnam525 MW (2025)~950 MW (2023‑2030 forecast)

Both forecasts agree that the market will expand dramatically, yet the gap between the two estimates highlights the uncertainty that planners face when sizing redundancy and inter‑connectivity.

5. Risk perspective – why cable health matters for AI workloads

The convergence of massive power draws and a reliance on a limited set of submarine cables creates a vulnerability profile that industry participants are beginning to address. While no public outage has been recorded at the time of writing, the sector’s own commentary stresses that “large data centres need reliable international Internet connections, particularly submarine cables and stable landing stations.” This suggests that any prolonged disruption could compel traffic onto less‑direct routes, increasing round‑trip times for workloads that are highly sensitive to latency, such as distributed model training and real‑time inference services.

Conclusion

Vietnam’s AI data‑centre boom is fueled by multi‑billion‑dollar commitments and a clear ambition to become a regional digital hub. Yet the expansion is now bounded by two practical realities: the need for robust, scalable power supplies and the necessity of resilient under‑sea connectivity. Monitoring the health of the MViSTA cable and ensuring diversified routing options will be essential for operators seeking to keep AI workloads performant and cost‑effective as the market moves toward the 2025‑2030 horizon.

Sources

This article was researched and fact-checked against the following sources: