Hanoi is forecast to soon become a new data center of ASEAN as the capital city boasts many advantages to attract international businesses and investors to invest in building and developing data centers, according to experts.

At the Hanoi Cloud and Datacenter Convention held on August 15, many leaders of high-tech firms and foreign investors affirmed that Vietnam, together with Thailand and Malaysia, is one of potential market to develop data centers. Of which, Hanoi is forecast to become a new data center of not only Vietnam but also Southeast Asian region.

Hanoi has favorable geographical position with less impacts from flooding and natural disasters. This is one of factors that investors often take into consideration when planning the construction of any data center, according to Mr. Nguyen Viet Anh, Director of the International Business Center of Viettel IDC.

As the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi is the economic, political, cultural and social center of the whole country, he said.

Hanoi currently has around 370,000 enterprises, including 10,000 firms operating in the field of information technology with 170,000 well-trained laborers. “This is an attractive factor for any business,” he said.

The city’s annual growth rate of cloud computing reached more than 30% over the past three years, contributing 36% to the city’s GRDP

Additionally, the construction costs for data centers in Hanoi are also advantageous compared to many other locations. The average land price to build a data center in Hanoi is estimated at $120 per sq m, equivalent to half of that in Ho Chi Minh City and one tenth of neighboring countries. In Singapore, the costs can reach up to $1,500 per sq m.

Also, labor costs for operational engineers and management are also significantly lower, equivalent to 40-50% of countries within ASEAN.

These factors, combined with a population of over 10 million and significant contribution to the country's GDP, Hanoi will soon become a new data center of ASEAN, according to Mr. Anh.