Dung, who is in Mie for the 30th Future of Asia Forum on May 29-30, appreciated Kioxia’s achievements, noting the corporation’s increasing importance in shaping global digital infrastructure amid surging data storage demands. He highlighted Kioxia’s strengths in the production of NAND flash memory and solid-state drives (SSD), which serve critical fields including cloud computing, smartphones, supercomputers, and automobiles.

The Deputy PM shared that Vietnam has issued a National Semiconductor Industry Development Strategy and established a National Steering Committee chaired by the Prime Minister. The country is actively promoting initiatives to develop the semiconductor ecosystem, including the establishment of an investment support fund, a programme to train 50,000 semiconductor engineers, the attraction of foreign investment, and the development of public-private and private-private partnerships across the industry’s value chain.

Vietnam possesses all the necessary conditions to develop the semiconductor industry, and Kioxia’s choice to invest in Vietnam is an extremely sound decision, he said.

He was pleased to learn that Vietnamese workers are well-treated and have made meaningful contributions to Kioxia and Japan’s economy.

The Deputy Prime Minister suggested that Kioxia establish a database to connect current and former Vietnamese employees, support high-skilled Vietnamese engineers with aspirations to launch startups or integrate into the semiconductor supply chain, and implement training and internship programmes for Vietnamese students.

To further strengthen bilateral cooperation, he proposed that Kioxia work with Vietnam to establish a large-scale, high-quality training centre, invest in data centres and R&D facilities, and, in particular, collaborate with Hanoi to quickly sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for an AI-integrated semiconductor manufacturing project at Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park.

For his part, Wantanbe Tomoharu, executive vice president of Kioxia, welcomed Dung’s proposals, and said the corporation would actively study and implement his recommendations, including expanding the recruitment of Vietnamese engineers, participating in semiconductor workforce training, and strengthening cooperation with Vietnamese ministries, agencies, and enterprises.

Kioxia, formerly known as Toshiba Memory Corporation, is one of the world’s leading memory manufacturing corporations currently valued at around US$8.1 billion. To date, the corporation has employed 50 Vietnamese workers, including 9 at its Mie factory and 3 engineers at its research centre.

Vietnam seeks Intel’s support in developing semiconductors, AI ecosystem

VOV.VN - Deputy Minister of Finance Cao Anh Tuan discussed the possibility of cooperation between Vietnam and Intel in developing the semiconductors and Artificial Intelligence ecosystem during his meeting with Sarah Kemp, vice president of International Government Affairs for Intel on May 13.