In addition to opening a Research and Development (R&D) Center in Vietnam, NVIDIA Corporation also committed to moving factories in its manufacturing supply chain to Vietnam in the near future, with the investment value of these factories reaching billions of USD.
Production workers in a factory serving a production chain with semiconductor chip applications in Northern Vietnam - Photo: GIA DOAN
As of early December 2024, Vietnam has attracted 174 FDI projects in the semiconductor sector with a total registered capital of nearly 11.6 billion USD. However, according to experts, the appearance of NVIDIA Corporation - the world's leading chip designer - will open up many opportunities for the development of Vietnam's semiconductor industry, because Vietnam will become the destination for high-tech projects, semiconductor industry and artificial intelligence (AI), with investment capital of billions of USD.
Tuoi Tre records the opinions of some experts surrounding this opportunity.
Mr. VO XUAN HOAI (Deputy Director of National Innovation Center):
Cooperation with NVIDIA will not stop at semiconductor chip production
After establishing NVIDIA's AI R&D Center in Vietnam, there will initially be about 130 employees. NVIDIA's investment in the AI R&D Center in Vietnam is an investment in the core ecosystem, which will attract many businesses providing AI data center equipment to follow.
This center will act as a magnet to attract surrounding satellites to invest, such as Supermicro. Another notable point is that when investing in Vietnam, NVIDIA did not start from scratch but chose to spend money to buy a start-up (VinBrain Company) as a basis to establish NVIDIA's AI R&D Center in Vietnam. This shows that NVIDIA has made very solid assessments of the investment potential, bringing great value to both NVIDIA and Vietnam.
NVIDIA is the world's largest semiconductor chip design and manufacturing corporation. Based on the strength of NVIDIA-produced chips being widely used in AI technology, the two sides have chosen to cooperate to establish NVIDIA's AI R&D Center in Vietnam and the AI Data Center in Vietnam.
This cooperation does not stop at semiconductor chip production but goes deep into the technology industry with AI applications, in which AI can be applied to develop chips and vice versa, creating chips to serve AI.
Mr. NGUYEN VAN TOAN (FDI investment expert):
Opening up opportunities for the development of the semiconductor industry
NVIDIA establishing an AI R&D Center and gradually moving the chip manufacturing supply chain to Vietnam is a good sign for the domestic semiconductor industry. However, if NVIDIA moves a semiconductor chip factory worth about 4 billion USD to Vietnam, it is not a big deal because the average investment capital for a semiconductor chip factory is from 15 to 20 billion USD.
But if NVIDIA moves a packaging and testing plant in its ecosystem to Vietnam in the near future, the investment capital will be less, only a few billion USD, or even a few hundred million USD. Semiconductor companies investing in Vietnam still only focus on packaging and testing semiconductor chips.
We don't have much capital yet, so it's difficult to build a semiconductor factory, so for now we can participate in chip design. This step requires the most quality of human resources, which we can meet.
The government is assigning ministries and sectors to train 50,000 semiconductor engineers, universities have received training targets, if they can do it, it will be very good. The advantage of participating in semiconductor chip design is high added value, while we do not need to spend too much money on training.
Of course, in the current context, Vietnam cannot do it alone but must rely on leading technology corporations such as NVIDIA and Samsung. The value of the design stage accounts for 50-60% of the cost of a semiconductor chip. The chip packaging stage accounts for only 6-7% of the chip's value.
In fact, investing in a semiconductor chip factory costs tens of billions of USD, while the total FDI investment in Vietnam in recent years has only reached about 30 billion USD, so we have chosen suitable stages in the semiconductor chip ecosystem to participate.
Prof. Dr. NGUYEN MAI (Chairman of the Association of Foreign Investment Enterprises - VAFIE):
Vietnam has many opportunities to develop semiconductor and AI industries.
Not only NVIDIA, but there is a wave of FDI investment in the semiconductor industry, AI, blockchain and other future technology industries. This wave started in 2023 when a series of large FDI corporations came to Vietnam to explore investment cooperation opportunities.
2023 also marks a political and diplomatic milestone, raising Vietnam's position in the region and the world, especially the visit to Vietnam by the US President and the two countries upgrading their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, towards cooperation and mutual development.
Economically, this is a period when Vietnam is accelerating and the US also needs Vietnam to implement the development strategies of the US and US corporations. In which, the two industries that the US and Vietnam both value are semiconductors and AI. Therefore, cooperation in semiconductors and AI will be a particularly important economic cooperation between the two countries.
The US will provide Vietnam with the necessary conditions to develop the semiconductor and AI industries to take advantage of a favorable investment environment, take advantage of the world's second-largest rare earth resources, enough for domestic production and export, contributing to changing the current rare earth monopoly.
In 2023, the US also announced $500 million in aid for countries cooperating with the US to develop the semiconductor industry, of which about 15% is for Vietnam. According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, there are about 13 semiconductor investment projects worth $3-4 billion that are negotiating investment in Vietnam, and these projects will be licensed by the end of 2024 or early 2025.
Vietnam becomes a destination for semiconductor and AI technology
For the world's number 1 technology corporation, NVIDIA, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Planning and Investment to coordinate with relevant agencies to establish two groups, including the Cooperation Implementation Working Group and the Negotiation Group with NVIDIA. The two working groups have discussed and worked with NVIDIA Corporation to attract investment, concretize cooperation plans and have achieved many breakthrough results, bringing great resonance and raising Vietnam's position in the region and the world, making Vietnam a destination for high technology, semiconductor technology and AI. To date, the Government and NVIDIA Corporation have signed a cooperation agreement to establish NVIDIA's AI Research and Development Center in Vietnam and an AI Data Center in Vietnam. The agreement is an important "push" to help Vietnam make a technological leap forward in the coming time, with a large spillover effect, attracting the attention of other high-tech investors in the world, especially in the field of AI, semiconductors to invest in Vietnam, while attracting and retaining many talents in the field of semiconductors and AI. Immediately after signing the agreement with the Government, NVIDIA immediately implemented related tasks such as recruiting people, perfecting the leadership apparatus and consolidating and attracting domestic and foreign talents to work at the AI Research and Development Center.Expected tens of billions of USD of FDI capital to flow into Vietnam
On December 16, a source from the Ministry of Planning and Investment said that NVIDIA does not directly produce, test, or package semiconductor chips, but only designs advanced, modern chips. According to this source, in the four stages of the semiconductor chip supply chain (including design, production, testing, and packaging), NVIDIA is at the top of the chain and performs the chip design stage. This is the stage with the highest value, while the remaining stages of chip production, testing, and packaging are assigned to other businesses in NVIDIA's semiconductor ecosystem. According to this source, if businesses in NVIDIA's chip supply and production chain move to Vietnam as committed, tens of billions of dollars of FDI will be poured into Vietnam in the near future.Tuoitre.vn
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/co-hoi-hap-dan-cho-cong-nghiep-ban-dan-viet-nam-tu-tap-doan-thiet-ke-chip-hang-dau-the-gioi-nvidia-20241216231740526.htm
Comment (0)