Vietnam opens cloud, data center market to foreign companies

HO CHI MINH CITY -- Vietnam has decided that foreign investors can now own data centers in the country, after controversial storage rules opposed by Big Tech set off an explosion in demand that the domestic market has been unable to fill.

The Law on Telecommunications, which took effect last week, says there are no foreign ownership caps for data and cloud providers. In various other industries, the one-party state has a 49% ceiling on foreign ownership. The law also gives the providers what law firm VDB Loi calls an "unprecedented exception" from licensing, so that they are "exempt from the usual market entry constraints."