Singapore-Backed Consortium Wins a 50-Year Lease for a $508 Million Hyperscale Data Centre in Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City authorities granted Evolution DC VN HCMC a 50-year lease, running from March 30, 2026 to March 30, 2076, on nearly 5 hectares of land in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park's Tang Nhon Phu Ward, clearing the way for a $508 million hyperscale data centre. The project is backed by a consortium of three Singapore-based investors — Evolution Data Centers, which is itself backed by Warburg Pincus and Abu Dhabi's Zero Two, alongside Hathor and Frontier. The facility is designed for 52 megawatts of IT load, targeting Uptime Tier III+ certification with a stated path toward Tier IV, and the developers have committed to more than 30% renewable energy use and net-zero emissions by 2045.
The lease adds to a run of large data-centre commitments in Ho Chi Minh City this year, part of a broader pattern in which Vietnam is absorbing sizeable hyperscale capital commitments even as its own AI startup ecosystem remains thin — a gap made explicit by fresh regional funding data the same week (see below).
Singapore Captured $9.3 Billion of Southeast Asia's AI Funding Through July — the Other Four Markets Combined Raised Under $40 Million
Singapore-based Native AI companies raised $9.3 billion across 227 funding rounds as of July 2026, according to data from market intelligence platform Tracxn cited by Eco-Business. Vietnam raised $19 million, Malaysia $8 million, Indonesia $6 million and Thailand $4 million — a combined total under $40 million, or roughly 0.4% of Singapore's figure. About 67% of the ecosystem's cumulative equity funding has been raised since the start of 2025, and 2026 alone has already brought in $4.1 billion in seven months, more than double the $2 billion raised across all of 2025.
The 2026 surge is heavily concentrated: AI infrastructure and data centres account for 65% of cumulative funding, and a single transaction — Kling AI's $2.8 billion Series D — made up 68% of the year's total through July. Tracxn's analysis attributes Singapore's dominance to structural factors rather than innovation levels alone, pointing to more than 500 venture capital firms and 4,500 tech startups based in the city-state, alongside government backing through the National AI Strategy 2.0 and the 2026 National AI Impact Programme.
Voice-AI Infrastructure Firm Deepgram Picks Singapore for Its APAC Headquarters, Backed by State Investor EDBI
Deepgram, a US-based real-time voice-AI infrastructure company, announced it will establish its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore, with a strategic investment from EDBI — an investment arm under SG Growth Capital, which sits alongside Singapore's Economic Development Board and Enterprise Singapore — structured as an extension to Deepgram's $130 million Series C. Sriram Ved was named Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific to lead the buildout. The company said APAC API request volume grew 96% year-on-year, with operations already spanning more than 20 markets including Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Singapore hub is intended to house regional leadership and commercial operations, expand customer and language-support teams — including coverage for Singapore's four official languages — and build out low-latency inference infrastructure across the region, with cloud, VPC, self-hosted and on-premises deployment options.
Eyes on the Day Ahead
Nothing concrete is scheduled in the next 24-48 hours; looking further out, Techsauce Global Summit 2026 — Southeast Asia's largest tech conference — runs August 26-28 in Bangkok, and is worth watching for AI-infrastructure and digital-asset announcements from regional regulators and vendors attending alongside its Korea Pavilion delegation.
Layer 7 Ventures is a research-driven firm focused on AI and cryptocurrency in Southeast Asia. Views expressed are those of the firm and do not constitute investment advice.
