The Internet in Vietnam is growing rapidly and plays a pivotal role in the country's broader digital transformation strategy. With high smartphone penetration and mobile-first internet usage, Vietnam is embracing digital technologies not just for daily use but also to drive government reform, economic modernization, and social development. Using the internet has become a daily habit among many Vietnamese people, with multiple purposes including work, study, entertainment, and more. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of Internet users increased from 800,000 to 3 million. By 2007, Vietnam reported Internet penetration levels of 11.5%, rising to 22.4 percent in 2008 and 45.2% in 2010. By 2013, Vietnam officials reported Internet penetration levels of 75.2%, which is about 68 million users with Wifi signals that can be found anywhere in every commercial and residential area. As of January 2021, out of its population of over 96 million people, the number of internet users reached approximately 69 million.
History
VARENet The mid-1990s witnessed gradual infrastructure development through predominantly international assistance. Around 1992, Rob Hurle, a retired professor of Information Technology at the Australian National University, took what is considered a founding step in connecting Vietnam to the internet with the initial hope of connecting his former students to the ANU mainframes. Partnering with Tran Ba Thai of the Institute of Information Technology (IOIT) in Hanoi, Dr. Hurle has been able to connect Vietnam and Australia via UUCP. Following the success of Dr. Hurle's venture. ANU as an institution collaborated with Telstra and, using Australia's DEET grant funding, would develop VARENet, the "Vietnam Academic Research and Educational Network" — an internal network which would by 1996 cover areas of the country including Hanoi, Haiphong, Huế, Nha Trang, and Ho Chi Minh City.
NetNam That same year, IOIT and Dr. Hurle collaborated with Canada's International Development Research Center to developed a different network called NetNam which was focused on providing connectivity to NGOs and a growing Vietnamese client base. Dr. Hurle and Tran were particularly instrumental in the development of NetNam, setting up the technological base of the network and securing the .vn domain code within the IANA DNS registry. At the time, the .vn domain code has been fully located within ANU's jurisdiction. By 1996, NetNam has had had hundreds of users consisting of academic institutions as well as NGOs.
Nationalization The watershed moment for Vietnam's internet history came on November 19, 1997, when Vietnam officially launched internet service after the government established a National Internet Coordinating Committee and made Vietnam Data Communication Company (VDC), a state-owned subsidiary of Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT), the first licensed Internet Access Provider. After the establishment of VDC, ANU eventually transferred its ownership of the .vn domain name to VNPT. By the decade's end, internet users exceeded 100,000, representing a milestone in the development of the internet within the country.
Infrastructure
Submarine Cable Connectivity Vietnam's international internet connectivity has historically relied on a small number of submarine fiber optic cables, creating significant bottlenecks during physical disruptions. As of 2023, the country utilized five primary international lines: AAE-1, APG, IA, AAG, and SMW-3. The network demonstrated limited redundancy, with the SMW-3 cable remaining operational despite approaching its planned 25-year lifespan and retirement date in late 2024. A major expansion of this infrastructure materialized in April 2025 with the commercial launch of the Asia Direct Cable (ADC) system. The Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel) served as the sole Vietnamese investor in the consortium. The 9,800 km cable links Vietnam to China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, and Japan, establishing direct connections to Asia’s three primary data hubs. The ADC offers a design capacity of 50 Tbps, which exceeded the combined international bandwidth of Vietnam's five existing cables by approximately 125% at the time of its launch. By reducing reliance on foreign-owned transit hubs and increasing direct capacity, Vietnam aims to secure the physical foundation necessary for a sovereign digital economy and future AI development, mitigating the risks of global network fragmentation. In 2016, an Asia Pacific Gateway cable was deployed. A table showcasing the development of the internet's capacity from 2000 to 2018 is displayed below:
Infrastructure as Digital Sovereignty Vietnam's primary concern is digital sovereignty rooted in physical infrastructure. Vietnam’s cybersecurity strategy is a "whole-of-government" endeavor driven by the triple imperatives of regime survival, national sovereignty, and socio-economic development, necessitating massive state investment in physical infrastructure (fiber optics) and legal frameworks (Decree 53). In general, Southeast Asian nations are executing a "structural recalibration" of the internet architecture to reclaim digital sovereignty from Western hyperscalers who currently control 68% of global data centers.
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