G42, the Abu Dhabi-based technology holding group; and a consortium comprising Vietnam’s FPT Corporation and Viet Thai Group have formed a $1-billion partnership to develop sovereign AI capabilities and cloud infrastructure across the Southeast Asian nation.
The initiative aims to support Vietnam’s ambition to become an AI-native society and a leading AI hub in Southeast Asia while ensuring national data sovereignty and digital resilience, according to an announcement.
Under the agreement, the consortium and G42 will deploy significant cloud capacity across three data centre locations in Vietnam, delivering high-performance AI and cloud services to support public and private sector workloads.
The initiative aligns with G42’s broader mission to build a global and inclusive Intelligence Grid, interconnecting advanced AI infrastructure, cloud platforms, and governance frameworks to enable AI capabilities on demand while respecting national sovereignty.
Through this infrastructure, Vietnam will gain the technical foundation to develop national AI initiatives across both public and private sectors, digitising services and deploying AI-powered solutions tailored to national priorities.
“This Framework Agreement represents a new model for national AI transformation—one built on sovereignty, partnership, and purpose,” said Ali Al Amine, Chief Commercial Officer of G42 International.
“Vietnam clearly understands that it cannot move forward alone. In areas such as semiconductors, AI, cloud computing, big data, and cybersecurity, we need strategic alliances with partners we can rely on and trust,” said the chairman of FPT Corporation Truong Gia Binh.
David Thai, Chairman & CEO, Viet Thai Group, said, “This initiative positions Vietnam at the forefront of AI-driven economic development in Asia, supporting economic development and the growth of the middle class in Vietnam. Our partnership with G42 and FPT creates the infrastructure foundation for long-term growth and innovation across multiple sectors.”
Beyond infrastructure development, the partnership includes plans for national AI skilling and workforce development programmes designed to support AI adoption across government, industry, and academia.
Last year, the UAE-based artificial intelligence company G42 and Microsoft announced to open two centres in Abu Dhabi to work on “responsible” AI initiatives.
Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and US private equity firm Silver Lake hold stakes in G42, whose chairman Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the UAE’s national security advisor and the president’s brother.
Vietnam’s data centre sector is emerging as a hotspot, drawing increasing interest from both domestic and international investors.
Last year, Vietnamese tech firm CMC Corp received the approval to build a $250-million hyperscale data centre in Ho Chi Minh City. Called “CMC Hyperscale DC SHTP,” the project is designed to be the “heart” of massive data storage, computation, and analytics, providing AI-as-a-Service, cloud infrastructure, big data, and cybersecurity services to millions of users.
Earlier, Singapore-headquartered firm ST Telemedia Global Data Centres and Vietnam’s first unicorn VNG Corporation announced a strategic collaboration to develop and manage international standard data centres in the city.
