Microchip production of SPARTON Company (USA) in Binh Duong. Photo: Le Toan

Investment in semiconductor industry

In early July 2024, a delegation from NVIDIA Corporation led by Dr. Ettikan Karuppiah, Chief Technology Officer for Asia-Pacific, continued to visit Ho Chi Minh City to survey and discuss future cooperation possibilities. The delegation met with the Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee to discuss issues of AI training and development for the City; support for start-up development (AI enterprises); and establishment of an AI Center of Excellence.

This is the second working session of NVIDIA Corporation with a number of universities and businesses in Ho Chi Minh City since the visit to Vietnam of billionaire Jensen Huang, Chairman and CEO of NVIDIA Corporation. This shows that the opportunity for investment cooperation with the world's leading technology corporation is very open when NVIDIA has had the first cooperation agreements with FPT Corporation to open an AI factory in Vietnam.

Another US technology giant, Marvell Corporation – a chip design company, is also accelerating the expansion of its chip design centers in Vietnam. In mid-May 2024, Marvell announced the opening of another chip design center in Da Nang and is preparing to open another center in Ho Chi Minh City after investing in a design center there.

Speaking to Dau Tu Newspaper reporters, Dr. Loi Nguyen, Senior Vice President of Cloud Optical Connections at Marvell Group, said that Marvell's design centers in Vietnam will focus on designing new microchip technology chips to meet the increasing demand for performance and speed of cloud data centers and artificial intelligence.

“Marvell Vietnam aims to become Marvell’s third largest IC design center globally in the next 2-3 years, after the main centers in the United States and the Indian branch. The opening of a chip design center in Da Nang not only reinforces Marvell’s long-term commitment to the Vietnamese market, but is also an important step towards the goal of developing a world-class IC design center right in Vietnam,” said Mr. Loi Nguyen.

Not only chip design enterprises, but also semiconductor and microchip manufacturing enterprises are also accelerating their investment expansion in Vietnam in general and in Ho Chi Minh City in particular. Among them, it is necessary to mention the Dutch semiconductor enterprise BE Semiconductor Industries (BESI), just a few months after putting the project into operation in phase I, this enterprise immediately applied for a license to expand investment in phase II at Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park (SHTP), with an investment capital of 42 million USD. This is rare in FDI enterprises, because normally after operating in phase I, investors must re-evaluate the efficiency before investing in expansion. However, with BESI, they saw the potential and opportunities in investing in the microchip and semiconductor industry in Ho Chi Minh City, so they quickly applied for investment in phase II.

In addition to Ho Chi Minh City, neighboring localities such as Binh Duong and Dong Nai have also received the attention of many investors in investing in microchip and semiconductor projects. In early April this year, Tokyu Corporation (Japan) met with leaders of Binh Duong province to review the development plan of the Corporation's new projects here. Mr. Hirohisa Fujiwara, International Business Director of Tokyu Corporation, said that Tokyu has established research and survey teams to expand investment in a number of new fields such as high technology, semiconductor technology, etc. in the near future. In particular, the Corporation is studying to invest in the semiconductor technology industry in Binh Duong.

Vietnamese businesses also join the race

Investment in the development of the microchip and semiconductor industry has not only received the attention of foreign investors, but domestic investors have also continuously sent proposals to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee asking for investment in the project. In mid-June 2024, Vncurved Company sent a document to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee proposing to build a chip packaging and testing factory.

Meanwhile, Dong Duong Construction Trading Joint Stock Company sent a document to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee proposing to invest in an Innovation Technology Park with an area of ​​350 - 400 hectares, specializing in attracting chip manufacturing and testing enterprises.

Currently, localities in the Southern Key Economic Zone prioritize attracting investment projects from technology corporations leading production chains, using high technology, and do not consider expanding or extending operations for projects using outdated technology, potentially causing environmental pollution.

Mr. Nguyen Tri Phuong, Head of the Dong Nai Industrial Park Management Board, said that in the first 6 months of 2024, projects attracting investment in industrial parks in Dong Nai were mainly in the fields of semiconductor manufacturing, electrical and electronic components; mechanical engineering. There were no projects in the list of industries with factors causing environmental pollution and labor-intensive.

Data center investment trends

Along with the semiconductor industry, data center investment is a hot field today, with a series of investors competing to propose building data centers in Ho Chi Minh City. After the Military Industry and Telecommunications Group (Viettel) invested in a data center with a capital of VND 14,700 billion in Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park (Cu Chi District) last year, many domestic and foreign enterprises have rushed to propose investing in data centers in Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park.

Among them, there are some famous corporations such as Hyosung Group (Korea); Hathor DC Vietnam Holdings Pte. Ltd - a subsidiary of Evolution Data Centers Group (Singapore); Coteccons Construction Joint Stock Company... These enterprises have officially sent documents to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee in May and June 2024, proposing to be investors of the project.

According to updated information from the Management Board of Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park, up to now, there are 5 investors who want to invest in the High-Tech Park Data Center Project.

Mr. Tran Viet Ha, Deputy Head of the Ho Chi Minh City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (Hepza), commented that investing in data centers is a new investment trend in industrial parks and high-tech zones. To attract businesses to invest in data centers, Hepza is promoting infrastructure investment in industrial parks to meet the needs of investors. Because investing in data centers requires a large, stable power source and backup power for businesses to operate.