AWS Hanoi Local Zone to boost next phase of cloud and AI innovation

At a media briefing in Hanoi on June 25, a week after the launch of the Hanoi Local Zone, Eric Yeo, country general manager of AWS in Vietnam, said the Local Zone is another step in a sustained journey – not a one-time event.

“The Hanoi Local Zone will make real-world impact to Vietnamese enterprises. It comes at a very significant time in Vietnam where its digital economy is developing strongly, and is at an inflection point at $72 billion last year, targeting $300 billion by 2030. This is coupled with nearly 170,000 businesses adopting AI in 2024 alone, a 39 per cent growth in one year,” said Yeo.

Eric Yeo, country general manager of AWS in Vietnam

Talking to VIR, he said Vietnamese businesses relying on low-latency services had to architect around distance – data travelling to AWS Regions and back. For some workloads, that's fine. But for real-time fraud detection, live gaming, and smart factory alerts – milliseconds matter.

"What's different now is that with the Hanoi Local Zone, data is processed and stored inside Vietnam at single-digit millisecond latency," said Yeo.

"That means a bank can catch fraud before the transaction completes. A gaming company keeps players engaged instead of losing them to lag. A manufacturer gets alerts in time to act. A telecom can keep subscriber data local for compliance. And organisations don't have to choose – they can run latency-sensitive workloads locally while tapping the full power of AWS Regions in Asia-Pacific for scale."

“Things that could not be done previously, can now be done with the Local Zone, and that is a true measure of success,” he noted. “Customers now have a choice. They can use the Local Zone for sensitive workloads or applications with very stringent latency requirements. Otherwise, they can continue to use the Region to help them scale better.”

Yeo continued, adding, “I believe this will help companies in Vietnam scale faster while continuing to use the AWS Region and all the services available there, including broad access to AI and the hundreds of models that are available. To me, that is a critical part of helping Vietnam remain competitive and compete globally.”

According to AWS, all industries will find it relevant, but particularly sectors such as telecommunications, manufacturing, particularly those operating smart factories, which also require instant responses and very low latency, and gaming companies as well.

Banks are also beneficiaries, particularly for sensitive workloads and situations where certain data needs to stay within the country. Fraud detection was cited as one example which is essential and needs to happen almost instantly, and cannot afford too much latency.

VPBank is among the first in Vietnam to deploy workloads on the Hanoi Local Zone, and now is already seeing tangible benefits.

Nguyen Hong Trung, VPBank Group CIO said that in the past, when operating traditional on-premises infrastructure, performance depended heavily on many factors, including hardware procurement, deployment timelines, network connectivity, and the availability of supporting services both locally and internationally.

“With AWS, we only need to focus on maintaining a small number of core components. AWS takes responsibility for designing, operating, and optimizing the underlying infrastructure. In other words, AWS acts as the architect of that infrastructure and continuously delivers the best possible performance. This allows us to move faster and focus more on innovation and business outcomes,” said Trung

He added that previously, organisations were largely responsible for building and maintaining their own security capabilities based on industry standards and recommendations from technology vendors. Considerable effort was required to develop security controls and ensure compliance.

“With AWS, we are able to leverage a mature and highly advanced security foundation. Security is a core priority for AWS, and many security controls and best practices are built directly into the platform. As a result, we can strengthen our own security capabilities by building on top of AWS's existing investments and expertise,” Trung explained. “Speed and security are the two key values that make digital infrastructure a critical enabler for organisations today.”

Nguyen Hong Trung, VPBank Group CIO

According to Eric Yeo, this infrastructure isn't just about today's workloads – it's about tomorrow's. As generative AI accelerates in Vietnam, the Local Zone gives organisations the ability to run AI inference locally – keeping data within Vietnamese borders, while accessing the world's most comprehensive AI platform through Amazon Bedrock.

First, it will solve the challenge about data locality. Many companies are concerned about using AI because of concerns around where the data is at. The Local Zone will allow companies to process the AI inference locally, which in the past has been one of the major stoppers.

Second, it is fundamentally helping every company that uses AI to differentiate and improve their customers' experience.

“Our vision is simple: Vietnamese organisations should be able to build, innovate, and compete at the same speed as anyone, anywhere in the world – without leaving home,” he noted.

In Vietnam, small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) account for over 90 per cent of all businesses in the country. These enterprises play an important role in the country’s acceleration of digital transformation. And the Local Zone is well positioned to support their journey.

“For SMEs, the bigger challenge is often skills rather than cost. They may not have the people or expertise needed to implement AI solutions. That’s why we provide technical support, and we also have a strong ecosystem of business partners who can help them,” he said.

To date, AWS has trained more than 157,000 people in Vietnam in cloud and AI skills since 2017, and partnered with 25 universities through its First Cloud Journey initiative.

“AI needs to run on the cloud, which enables SMEs to experiment quickly and affordably. If something works, they can scale it. If it doesn't, they can simply stop and move on,” he added.

Sharing about the company’s next plans, Eric Yeo shared that senior leaders from Amazon and AWS recently visited and met with General Secretary and President To Lam. One of the key priorities he highlighted for Amazon is its commitment to help develop Vietnam's digital infrastructure. As a result, AWS committed to continual engagement with customers such as VPBank and many other organisations across Vietnam.

“We take a long-term view. We will continue listening to our customers, evaluating demand, and investing to ensure Vietnamese businesses have access to the infrastructure they need to innovate and compete globally,” he noted.