Viettel’s Hòa Lạc data centre will play an important role in protecting data sovereignty and personal data in Việt Nam. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The military-run telecom service provider Viettel on April 10 inaugurated its data centre in Hòa Lạc Hi-tech Park in Hà Nội – one of the largest data centres in Việt Nam so far.

The new centre has racks with a capacity of three times higher than the average in Việt Nam. It meets the development trend of artificial intelligence (AI) with high-performance computer chips to increase computing ability.

The data centre holds many green certificates such as energy management standards, environmental impact management standards, and labour hygiene management standards. It is also the first data centre in Việt Nam to commit to using renewable energy to meet 30 per cent of electricity consumption.

Speaking at the inauguration, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng emphasised that investing in data centres is a new type of investment by telecommunications service providers to have new growth space. Data is the most important resource of the digital economy. A country's future wealth is measured by data.

Big data and big data processing will be the largest industry, he said, adding that Viettel as well as other Vietnamese telecommunications service providers need to have a sound vision of a country's data infrastructure, to turn Việt Nam into a global digital hub.

Hùng said that a safe and reliable data centre system with the highest security and the most advanced technology like Viettel’s Hòa Lạc data centre will play an important role in protecting data sovereignty and personal data in Việt Nam.

Viettel Chairman and General Director Maj. Gen. Tào Đức Thắng said that to date, Viettel has had a total of 230,000 servers, 81,000sq.m of floor space, 11,500 racks, 87MW of electricity – equivalent to a data centre of the world.

In the coming time, Viettel will continuously invest in data centres. It will invest an additional VNĐ10 trillion (US$400.88 million) to expand the scale to 17,000 racks by 2025, and VNĐ40 trillion for 34,000 racks by 2030.

Currently, all of Viettel's data centres meet international standards TIA 942. In particular, the Hòa Lạc centre is designed and implemented to ensure 5-layer physical security – the highest level so far. It can connect to all countries and five undersea fiber optic cable lines with five different directions. All operations of the data centre are monitored remotely all the time. — VNS