Ho Chi Minh City grants 4.5ha land to Singapore's Sembcorp for data center

The US$480.26 million complex will occupy lot T9, fronting La Xuan Oai Street and roads D4 and D7 in Tang Nhon Phu Ward. The park's management board issued the project's first investment registration certificate on March 27. Starmason will pay its land rent in a single lump sum covering the full lease and is exempt from that rent for the life of the project, provided it meets the conditions for the incentive. The project is also exempt from the requirement to auction land use rights or run a bidding process to select an investor under the 2024 Land Law. The city has told Starmason to use the land only for its stated purpose, meet the terms of the certificate, and secure both funding and the construction timeline. The company must also repay compensation, support and resettlement costs where required. It will owe the waived rent and face penalties if it loses its eligibility for the exemption, diverts the land to another use or breaches land law. The Department of Agriculture and Environment will complete the land paperwork, mark the boundaries and hand over the site. The park's management board will track construction progress, funding and compliance with the incentive terms. A section of the Saigon Hi-Tech Park in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by Quynh Tran Starmason JSC was set up in November 2025 to develop the data center. Singapore's Sembcorp Development, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sembcorp Industries, holds 49% in the venture alongside Vietnamese partner BB Holdings. Sembcorp has operated in Vietnam for three decades through the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park network. This is its first data center in the country. The complex is designed for an initial 60 MW IT load and can expand to 90 MW, serving AI, cloud computing, big data processing, high-performance computing and digital infrastructure services. Sembcorp said in March that the campus will be built in phases to Uptime Institute Tier III standards, with the aim of eventually reaching Tier IV, the highest classification. Starmason was among four hi-tech projects worth a combined $1.23 billion that Ho Chi Minh City handed certificates to at a ceremony in late April. Another was Evolution DC VN HCMC, a $508 million facility rated for a 52 MW IT load and backed by the Singaporean consortium of Hathor, Frontier and Evolution. Subsidiary of VnExpress License number: 71/GP-CBC, Ministry of Information andCommunications, September 22, 2021 Editor-in-Chief: Pham Van Hieu Email: [email protected]: 028 7300 9999 - Ext 8556 10th floor, Block A FPT Tower, 10 Pham Van Bach, Cau Giay Ward, Hanoi