🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Samsung’s potential move is fueled by Vietnam’s new high-stakes incentives

• Vietnam is courting semiconductor investment with what it calls the highest level of incentives ever offered 1.
• Strategic projects such as semiconductor manufacturing can receive a full exemption from land use and rental fees 1.
• Eligible chip projects also get a four-year corporate income tax holiday, then a 50% cut for the next nine years 1.
• The plan targets at least 10 chip packaging and testing facilities. It also aims to lift local semiconductor industry revenue above US$25 billion a year by 2030, which supports efforts to win companies such as Samsung 2.

A Vietnam facility could signal a broader shift in the AI supply chain

• A Vietnam site could lower expenses. It could also strengthen Samsung’s role in the race to supply AI chips.
• AI demand has pushed advanced packaging so hard that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, has faced CoWoS shortages for several quarters 3. That leaves room for competitors.
• Samsung plans to roll out its 2.5D packaging approach, Fan-Out Panel-Level Packaging (FO-PLP), as it works to close the gap with TSMC in AI-chip packaging 3.
• Amkor, a US-based chip packaging and testing company, opened a Vietnam factory. It says the site is on track to become its largest within a roughly US$1.6 billion investment through 2035 43.
• Taiwan held about 77% of the global data center AI chip packaging market in 2024, and 90% when excluding High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) assembly 43. More capacity in Vietnam could widen supply chain options.