Reuters: Samsung Plans Over $1.4 Billion Investment in Vietnam for Semiconductor Testing Plant

According to proposal documents from South Korea's Samsung Electronics, the company plans to invest 39 trillion Vietnamese dong (approximately 46.5 billion New Taiwan dollars) in Vietnam to build a semiconductor testing plant to alleviate the global memory chip shortage caused by the surge in artificial intelligence (AI) demand.

Reuters reported that, based on proposal documents submitted by Samsung Electronics to local authorities, the new plant has already broken ground in an industrial park about 60 kilometers north of Hanoi and is expected to begin production in November 2027. This will be Samsung's first chip testing plant in Vietnam.

The plant will focus primarily on testing legacy chips. Although these chips are less critical in the AI supply chain, they are also in short supply as major manufacturers shift more capacity toward AI chips.

According to environmental impact assessment application documents, the plant is expected to produce 153.3 billion gigabits of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and 255.6 billion gigabits of NAND flash memory annually.

The documents indicate that the investment was approved by Vietnamese authorities in March this year, and Samsung plans to reinvest profits from the project, with a cap of about $2.5 billion, to build a second plant.

Sources revealed that at least 200 Samsung engineers and employees have been working at the project site since at least April this year. Reuters reporters also saw heavy machinery and workers at the site this week, and security guards confirmed that a Samsung semiconductor plant would be built there.

Samsung is currently the largest foreign investor in Vietnam, having invested over $23 billion in the country over several decades. The location of the new plant is adjacent to Samsung's large production base for smartphones and tablets.