China offers to build AI factories in Vietnam

Chinese companies have proposed jointly building data centers in Vietnam, offering equipment and capital in exchange for land, power and permits.

A humanoid robot walks as employees conduct tests on the production line at the AgiBot factory in Shanghai, China

Speaking at the Vietnam-China Dialogue Forum on AI and the Digital Economy in Hanoi on Aug. 27, Yang Xin, identified by organizers as director of the industrial research institute at the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce in Shenzhen, said the two countries would build AI factories together.

Global AI spending will reach US$2.59 trillion this year, a 47% increase, Yang said, citing Gartner. Infrastructure is the largest single segment at 55% of that total.

He put Vietnam's operating data center capacity at around 148 MW.

The government's target under its information and communications infrastructure plan is 870 MW by 2030.

Building 1 MW of capacity in Vietnam costs a mid-range $7.2 million, against $14.4 million in Singapore, $9.6 million in Malaysia and $8.8 million in Thailand, according to Cushman & Wakefield's Asia Pacific Data Center Construction Cost Guide 2026, which Yang cited.

The same guide puts the wait for a new 100 MW grid connection in Vietnam's main data center clusters at two to three years.

Vietnam has roughly 10,000 to 15,000 GPUs against 50,000 to 60,000 in South Korea, which plans to expand to between 200,000 and 250,000 within five years, Nvidia told the Ministry of Science and Technology on Aug. 20.

Vietnam's national AI strategy, approved on Aug. 28, targets about 250,000 H100-class GPUs or equivalent by 2030.

Yang said land availability and project delivery capacity were further weak points, and that the gaps were an opportunity for China to help.

Under his proposal, Vietnam would contribute land, electricity and permits, with capital coming from Chinese firms supplying equipment, energy solutions and GPU computing systems.

The two sides could also develop localized open-source AI models and agents for manufacturing, cross-border logistics, smart border gates and agricultural traceability.

Jonathan Choi, who chairs Hong Kong's Sunwah Group, a forum co-host, and the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said in opening remarks that China has accumulated years of experience in AI research and development while Vietnam's digital transformation is generating a wide range of applications for the technology.

Chinese firms would draw on that technical base to build solutions suited to the local market alongside Vietnamese partners, he said.

Nguyen Khac Lich, director of the Department of Digital Technology and Artificial Intelligence under the Ministry of Science and Technology, said the two countries have "vast room for cooperation" and can complement each other in AI, the digital economy, semiconductors, smart manufacturing, research and development, and workforce training.

The relationship needs to move "from economic connectivity to technological connectivity, from straightforward transfer to co-creation, from attracting investment to jointly building an ecosystem and talent pool," Lich said.

He proposed that companies from both countries "co-create an AI and digital economy ecosystem," researching, localizing and developing solutions together.

In that arrangement, he said, "Vietnam is both a market and a testing ground where products are refined, and a springboard for Chinese AI solutions to expand into ASEAN and the world."

The forum closed with five memorandums of understanding, including agreements between Sunwah and the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology, Sunwah and construction group FECON, and Sunwah's Hanoi arm with Viettel IDC and CMC Global.