Accelerated Infrastructure Capital (AIC), a Hong Kong- and London-based digital infrastructure investor, and its Vietnamese co-developer KinhBac City Development Holding Corporation (KBC) have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology for the SGI-HCM Campus — a $2.1 billion AI data centre complex that will break ground on 30 April 2026 in the Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park in Cu Chi District. The signing, held on 12 March 2026, represents the transition of one of Southeast Asia’s most closely watched data centre investments from the permitting and approvals phase into active construction mobilisation, with Phase 1 capital disbursement scheduled for completion by end of the first quarter of 2027 and the initial 50 MW AI computing facility expected to come online by the end of 2027. At full buildout, the campus is designed for 200 MW of IT load capacity and will be capable of running up to 100,000 graphics processing units — positioning it as one of the largest AI-oriented data centre complexes in Southeast Asia.

Ten Hectares in Cu Chi: What the SGI-HCM Campus Will Deliver

The SGI-HCM Campus will occupy a 10-hectare site within Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park — a major industrial zone in Ho Chi Minh City’s Cu Chi District, developed by Northwest Saigon City Development Corporation. The site’s selection was not accidental: Tan Phu Trung offers one of the most compelling grid access positions of any industrial land parcel in the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area. A national high-voltage transmission line runs directly through the park, with a 500 kV substation located approximately two kilometres from the site and a second 500 kV substation under construction roughly five kilometres away — a dual-substation configuration that provides the redundant power infrastructure essential for hyperscale data centre operations. This power proximity was a decisive factor cited by KBC investment director Vincent Kwok in the site selection process.

Project Fact Sheet: SGI-HCM AI Data Center Campus

Project Name: SGI-HCM Campus (AI Data Center Complex)

Location: Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park, Cu Chi District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Site Area: 10 hectares

Total Investment: ~$2.1 billion (combined phases)

Phase 1 IT Load Capacity: Up to 50 MW (~28,000 GPUs)

Full Campus IT Load Capacity: 200 MW (~100,000 GPUs)

Capital Structure: Equity contributions (AIC, KBC, partners) + commercial loans (VietinBank)

MOU Signed (Tripartite): 28 October 2025 (KBC, AIC, VietinBank)

MOU Signed (City): 12 March 2026 (AIC + Ho Chi Minh City Dept. of Science and Technology)

Groundbreaking: 30 April 2026

Phase 1 Capital Disbursement Completion: Q1 2027

Phase 1 Commissioning Target: End of 2027

Power Infrastructure: 500 kV substation ~2 km; second 500 kV substation ~5 km (under construction)

Design Standards: International — energy efficiency, cybersecurity, sustainability

Industrial Park Developer: Northwest Saigon City Development Corporation (SCD)

Project Team: SGI-HCM AI Data Center Campus

International Developer / Investment Advisor: Accelerated Infrastructure Capital (AIC) — Hong Kong and London (founded 2023 by Chayora co-founders)

Local Co-Developer: KinhBac City Development Holding Corporation (KBC) — HoSE listed; Saigon Invest Group

KBC Chairman: Dang Thanh Tam

Deputy General Director: Dang Nguyen Nam Anh

KBC Investment Director: Vincent Kwok

Financial Partner: VietinBank (Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade)

Municipal Authority: Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee; Dept. of Science and Technology

Task Force Lead: Lam Dinh Thang (Director, Ho Chi Minh City Dept. of Science and Technology)

Task Force Established: 30 December 2025 (15 members)

General Contractor / Design-Builder: To be confirmed

Construction will be phased to manage capital deployment and align commissioning timelines with the rapidly evolving AI compute market. Phase 1 will deliver up to 50 MW of IT load capacity, equivalent to approximately 28,000 GPUs — a compute density already substantial enough to serve the AI training and inference workloads of enterprise customers, cloud service providers, and research institutions both within Vietnam and regionally. The campus is being designed and built to international standards, with energy efficiency, cybersecurity, and sustainability as core engineering principles. AIC, which was founded in 2023 by the co-founding team of APAC data centre firm Chayora, brings deep experience in building hyperscale and neocloud facilities across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, with a total advisory portfolio exceeding several billion dollars. The full campus at 200 MW, capable of hosting 100,000 GPUs across all phases, will rank among the highest-density AI computing environments in the ASEAN region.

The Partnership Structure and the Roles of AIC, KBC, and VietinBank

The SGI-HCM Campus is the product of a consortium assembled systematically over the course of 2025. The formal tripartite agreement between AIC, KBC, and VietinBank was signed on 28 October 2025, establishing the foundational partnership and capital structure for the project. Under that framework, AIC provides international development expertise, data centre design and operational know-how, and access to global technology and equipment supply chains. KBC — listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) and one of Vietnam’s most active industrial park and urban real estate developers — contributes land, development rights within Tan Phu Trung, and its deep relationships with Vietnamese industrial and government institutions. VietinBank, one of Vietnam’s largest state-connected commercial banks, acts as the financial partner, providing project finance consulting, capital mobilisation, and commercial loan structuring to fund the construction programme alongside equity contributions from AIC, KBC, and their co-investors.

Dang Thanh Tam, chairman of KBC and a member of the Saigon Invest Group (of which KBC is part), has described the data centre investment as a strategic transformation for KBC — moving the company’s industrial park portfolio up the value chain from conventional manufacturing infrastructure toward high-tech and digital infrastructure. Dang Nguyen Nam Anh, KBC’s deputy general director, has articulated the broader vision clearly: Vietnam is entering the era of data and artificial intelligence, and data centres are the foundation of that era. AIC, for its part, has stated its intention to develop a chain of hyperscale and neocloud data centres across Vietnam in subsequent phases, with the SGI-HCM Campus as the first node in what is intended to become a national digital infrastructure network.

Government as Active Partner: HCMC’s Task Force and the April 30 Target

The Ho Chi Minh City government has been unusually proactive in facilitating the SGI-HCM Campus — a posture that reflects both the project’s strategic importance to the city’s digital economy ambitions and a recognition that Vietnam’s regulatory environment, with its multiple overlapping permitting requirements, can create damaging delays for time-sensitive infrastructure investments. On 30 December 2025, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee established a dedicated 15-member task force, led by Lam Dinh Thang, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology, with direct participation from KBC, AIC, and Northwest Saigon City Development Corporation. The task force was mandated to coordinate across municipal departments, expedite regulatory and procedural approvals within its authority, and support investors in completing legal requirements aligned with the project’s agreed timelines.

The MOU signed on 12 March 2026 formalises the next tier of that government-investor cooperation, committing both parties to coordinated project implementation under a structured framework. The groundbreaking date of 30 April — Liberation Day, Vietnam’s most symbolically significant national holiday marking the reunification of the country in 1975 — was chosen deliberately to underscore the national ambition embedded in the project and the government’s ownership of it. With capital disbursement for Phase 1 scheduled to conclude by end of Q1 2027 and initial operations anticipated by the end of 2027, the construction mobilisation that begins on 30 April initiates a tight but achievable 18-month programme to the first live AI computing facility.

Vietnam’s Data Centre Race and the Regional AI Infrastructure Context

The SGI-HCM Campus is the most advanced project in a wave of hyperscale data centre investments that is transforming Ho Chi Minh City — and Vietnam more broadly — into one of Southeast Asia’s most competitive digital infrastructure markets. The depth of the pipeline is striking: within Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park alone, Viettel Group began construction in April 2025 of a 140 MW data centre covering nearly four hectares, designed to house 10,000 racks and rank in Southeast Asia’s top ten by capacity, with operations beginning in early 2026. A consortium comprising UAE-based AI holding company G42, Microsoft, FPT Corporation, VinaCapital, and Viet Thai Group has proposed a separate $2 billion hyperscale AI campus in the city.

VNG and ST Telemedia Global Data Centres are jointly building two AI data centres — STT VNG Ho Chi Minh City 1 and 2 — which began operations in the first half of 2026. CMC Corporation’s 120 MW facility in the city’s High-Tech Park is advancing with a $250 million initial investment. IPTP Networks is building a $200 million AI data centre in Da Nang Hi-Tech Park.

Vietnam’s appeal to this investment cohort rests on a set of structural advantages: competitive land and energy costs relative to Singapore and Malaysia, a young and rapidly growing digital economy, supportive national AI and digital infrastructure policy (including the recently enacted Law on Digital Technology Industry), and a government genuinely committed to positioning the country among Asia’s leading AI economies. Deloitte has projected Vietnam’s AI market could reach $65 billion by 2035, with $25 billion of that flowing specifically into AI data centre infrastructure. By 2030, total Vietnamese data centre capacity is projected to approach 1,000 MW — nearly double the 525 MW available in 2025.

For AIC, KBC, and their partners, the April 30 groundbreaking at Tan Phu Trung represents not merely the launch of a single campus but an opening position in what will be one of the defining infrastructure build cycles in Southeast Asian economic history. That regional race is already well advanced in neighbouring Malaysia, where Telekom Malaysia and Singapore’s Nxera have broken ground on the Iskandar Puteri Data Centre Block 2 in Johor — a joint venture targeting 64MW of AI-enabled capacity with expansion potential to 200MW, reinforcing Johor’s emergence as one of Southeast Asia’s most strategically positioned digital infrastructure hubs.