Hosted in Hanoi on 27 November, the Internet Day 2024 conference brought together industry leaders and policymakers to explore the opportunities facing Vietnam's surging digital economy. Under the theme, "A New Leap for Vietnam's Internet," the event spotlighted the immense potential of technologies like cloud computing, data centres, 5G, and artificial intelligence to transform the nation's economy. With Statista forecasting 100 million Vietnamese Internet users by 2029 and Google projecting a $36 billion Internet economy by next year, the stage is set for a digital revolution in Vietnam.
More broadly, Vietnam's ascendant path embodies the promise of Southeast Asia—a region whose rapid digitalisation is generating considerable economic potential. Yet despite this optimistic outlook, safeguards to ensure open and independent connectivity infrastructure will be critical to ward off emerging threats to the long-term stability and growth of the region's digital economy.
A Region of Opportunity
Over the past decade, Southeast Asia's digital landscape has undergone a seismic transformation, positioning connectivity as a cornerstone of the region's growth. Across the region's six largest economies, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—known collectively as the 'ASEAN-6'—digital connectivity has doubled since 2016, while broadband subscriptions rose tenfold between 2010 and 2022 to reach 769 million.
Singapore has emerged as the region's leading connectivity powerhouse, hosting ASEAN's largest installed capacity and serving as a global hub for submarine cables, while Southeast Asia's cost-efficient operations and access to renewable energy have positioned it as a hotspot for data centre growth. Amid soaring AI and cloud computing-driven demand, global tech giants spent roughly $30 billion on data center construction for AI in the first half of 2024 alone, with the likes of Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia engaging in investment talks with Indonesia and Malaysia.
Given this boom in digital infrastructure and its over 460 million digital consumers, Southeast Asia's digital economy is primed for explosive growth. Indeed, propelled by recent years of double-digit annual growth, ASEAN-6's digital economy is projected to reach up to $1 trillion by 2030.
Major Roadblocks Emerging
Nevertheless, a range of obstacles threatens this potential—a reality underscored by the latest annual SEA (Southeast Asia) report from Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company. The SEA report has notably found a year-on-year 'e-conomy' growth drop from 17% to 15%—the lowest rate in seven years—as well as a sharp decline in investment deals amid rising inflation, reduced consumer spending, and slowing user growth.
Key barriers such as the region's urban-rural digital divides and low digital literacy rates underscore a fragmented digital landscape. For example, Singapore boasts mobile penetration rates nearly three times higher than Laos and fixed broadband subscriptions nine times greater than Cambodia and Myanmar. Beyond the challenge that rural populations exceed 40% in most ASEAN nations, urban users' relatively superficial Internet usage—marked by disproportionately high social media activity—hinders deeper participation in the digital economy.
Adding to these hurdles is the region's deteriorating Internet freedom. According to Freedom House's latest report, the threats facing the open Internet continue rising, with no ASEAN country rated "free." Of the eight Southeast Asian countries surveyed, only Indonesia has improved, with Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar among the worst-ranked countries due to restrictive practices such as blocking Internet access, censoring and punishing online free speech, and violating user privacy.
Lu Heng's Bold IP Solutions
Moving forward, overcoming ASEAN's digital barriers requires significant private, public, and civil society cooperation to boost digital participation and embed innovative new business models.
Through his work as founder and CEO of IP solutions provider LARUS Limited, Lu Heng has been a major contributor to this regional undertaking over the past decade. Recognising the challenges SMEs in ASEAN's emerging digital economies face in accessing critical digital infrastructure, Heng launched LARUS in 2016 with an innovative leasing model for IPv4 addresses. In addition to lowering businesses' digital entry barriers via more affordable IP costs, this decentralised IP allocation has helped strengthen connectivity infrastructure's resilience against misuse by a rogue state or bureaucratic actors.
Complementing LARUS's business activity, Heng established the firm's NGO wing, the Larus Foundation, in 2018 to help fuel digital inclusion in underserved communities. From its partnerships with like-minded universities and NGOs aimed at fostering universal Internet education to its flagship Fellowship Programme, which allows young people to participate in Internet governance and policymaking forums, the Larus Foundation is empowering its communities with tools to navigate digital spaces better and shape an open and accessible Internet.
What's more, through his active participation in key regional governance bodies, including the Pacific Telecommunications Council's Advisory Council and APNIC, Heng has continuously advocated for bottom-up Internet policymaking, opposing censorship and promoting global cooperation to ensure a more inclusive, secure, and prosperous digital ecosystem across the region.
Darren Webb's Green Digitalisation Drive
With industry leaders like Lu Heng providing key IT infrastructure solutions, Darren Webb, CEO and co-founder of Singapore-based Evolution Data Centres (EDC), has emerged as a pioneer in developing sustainable hard infrastructure to meet the booming electricity demand from AI and cloud computing. As Webb asserts, "Our goal is to build greener infrastructure that aligns with our customers' needs and Net Zero goals," rightly noting how "operating greener, more sustainable centres..." is quickly becoming a critical requirement demanded by its customers.
Recognising the need for sustainable energy solutions, EDC has partnered with Banpu NEXT, a key player in smart energy across the Asia-Pacific, to accelerate green transformation in the region's data infrastructure. Set to deliver up to 30MW of renewable power in Thailand and 50MW in Vietnam; this ambitious collaboration will allow EDC's facilities to operate sustainably at scale while helping to attract the foreign investment needed to maintain momentum behind the region's digital economy. By integrating renewable energy, Webb and EDC are leading the way in balancing digital growth with environmental responsibility across Southeast Asia.
Representing ASEAN's broader potential, countries like Vietnam and Thailand stand on the brink of extraordinary digital growth. Yet, long-term success will depend on securing open, resilient network infrastructure to shield the region's digital transformation from emerging threats. The path forward is clear—building an inclusive, sustainable digital ecosystem is not just an aspiration but a necessity for ensuring lasting growth and shared prosperity across Southeast Asia.
