TL;DR: The AWS Local Zone Hanoi went live on June 19, 2026, bringing single-digit millisecond latency and in-country data processing to Vietnamese enterprises. For companies using DataCore's Address Service, eKYC Service, and Company Intelligence Service, the Local Zone means faster API responses and a cleaner path to data-residency compliance under Decree 13/2023/ND-CP. This post covers what this AWS infrastructure is, why it matters for regulated industries in Vietnam, and what it means for data-driven businesses building on Vietnamese data infrastructure today.
What Is the AWS Local Zone Hanoi and How Does It Work?
The AWS Local Zone Hanoi is an extension of Amazon Web Services' Singapore Region (ap-southeast-1), deployed on physical infrastructure located inside Vietnam. Unlike the full AWS Regions in Singapore or Tokyo - which are multi-availability-zone deployments with over 200 managed services - the Hanoi's Local Zone is a smaller, purpose-built compute and storage presence designed for latency-sensitive workloads. When a Vietnamese enterprise deploys an application to this in-country deployment, the data processing happens inside Vietnam, not in a neighboring country's data center.
AWS operates more than 35 Local Zones globally across 6 continents. The AWS Local Zone Hanoi joins Local Zones already serving Bangkok, Manila, Taipei, and other Southeast Asian cities. Each Local Zone extends its parent AWS Region while keeping the most latency-critical services - compute, storage, networking, databases, and caching - physically close to end users. For Hanoi-based applications, the Local Zone in Hanoi reduces round-trip latency from the 30-50ms typical of a Singapore routing path to under 10ms for workloads running locally.
The AWS Local Zone Hanoi supports the following core services at launch: Amazon EC2 (compute instances), Amazon EBS (block storage), Amazon VPC (virtual private networking), Amazon RDS (managed relational databases), Amazon ElastiCache (in-memory caching), Amazon FSx (file storage), and Application Load Balancers. Organizations already using the Singapore Region can extend their existing VPC to include this AWS extension without rebuilding their architecture - a significant operational advantage over standing up an entirely new region footprint.
Connectivity between the AWS Local Zone Hanoi and the parent Singapore Region runs over AWS's dedicated global backbone, not the public internet. This means that data movement between Hanoi-local resources and Singapore-based services such as Amazon S3, Amazon CloudFront, or AWS Lambda benefits from low-latency, high-reliability dedicated links rather than unpredictable internet routing. Enterprises can therefore run a split architecture: latency-sensitive or compliance-critical workloads run in the new Local Zone, while storage, analytics, and services without residency constraints remain in Singapore.
Why the AWS Local Zone Hanoi Launch Matters for Vietnamese Enterprises
Before the AWS Local Zone Hanoi, Vietnamese enterprises had three choices for cloud infrastructure: use a hyperscaler region in Singapore or Tokyo and accept the latency and residency trade-offs; contract with a local Vietnamese cloud provider such as Viettel Cloud or FPT Cloud; or build and operate their own data center infrastructure. None of these options was ideal. The Singapore-based hyperscaler path offered superior service breadth but introduced cross-border data flows. Local Vietnamese cloud providers offered in-country presence but often lagged on managed service capabilities. On-premises infrastructure was expensive to build and operate at scale.
The AWS Local Zone Hanoi changes this picture substantially. Vietnamese enterprises can now run workloads on world-class managed infrastructure - with AWS SLAs, security certifications, and the global AWS service ecosystem behind them - while keeping compute and primary data storage inside Vietnam. For regulated industries in particular, this combination is transformative. The following three sectors stand to benefit most immediately from AWS's Hanoi infrastructure:
- Financial services and fintech: Trading systems, payment processors, digital lending platforms, and credit-scoring engines handling Vietnamese customer data can now achieve sub-10ms processing latency while remaining in-country. The AWS Local Zone Hanoi is directly relevant for any institution subject to the State Bank of Vietnam's circulars on data management and IT risk for financial institutions.
- Healthcare and identity technology: eKYC providers, digital health record platforms, and biometric identity systems require both low latency and strict data residency. This local cloud infrastructure addresses both requirements simultaneously, making it a natural infrastructure choice for Vietnam's growing digital identity sector.
- B2B data platforms and analytics: Companies processing real-time Vietnamese business, market, or operational data - including data providers like DataCore - can serve API clients with faster, more consistent response times when both the data service and the client application are co-located in the Local Zone deployment.
Data Residency Compliance and the AWS Local Zone Hanoi
Data residency compliance is the single most complex infrastructure challenge facing Vietnamese enterprises today, particularly those operating in sectors covered by Decree 13/2023/ND-CP on Personal Data Protection. The decree, which took effect in July 2023, mandates that organizations processing sensitive personal data of Vietnamese citizens store the primary copy of that data on servers located within Vietnam. The categories of sensitive personal data covered by the decree include financial information, biometric identifiers, health records, precise location data, and information about minors - a broad set that covers the data handled by fintech, healthcare, identity, and data analytics companies alike.
Until the AWS Local Zone Hanoi came online, meeting the Decree 13 residency requirement on AWS infrastructure meant either using a local Vietnamese cloud provider or accepting legal and operational risk by processing data through Singapore. The Local Zone removes that dilemma. Because this AWS infrastructure is physically located in Vietnam, EC2 instances and RDS databases deployed to the Local Zone process and store data on Vietnamese soil. This is a technically defensible position for Decree 13 compliance, subject to appropriate data governance controls and legal review.
It is important to be precise: the AWS Local Zone Hanoi satisfies the territorial component of the data-residency requirement, but compliance also depends on data access controls, audit logging, and contractual arrangements with AWS. Organizations should ensure that their AWS Identity and Access Management policies, CloudTrail audit logs, and data processing agreements are configured appropriately alongside the physical residency provided by Hanoi's Local Zone. The combination of physical in-country infrastructure and proper governance controls is what makes a Decree 13 compliance case.
For organizations navigating Vietnam's evolving data-protection landscape, the AWS Local Zone Hanoi also provides a future-proof foundation. Vietnam is expected to introduce a comprehensive data law in the near term, building on Decree 13. The in-country processing capability offered by this in-country deployment positions enterprises well for whatever additional residency requirements the forthcoming legislation introduces.
How DataCore's In-Country Data Services Benefit from the AWS Local Zone Hanoi
DataCore operates three production data services that are directly relevant to the infrastructure shift created by the AWS Local Zone Hanoi. Each of these services processes Vietnamese data in real time, and each benefits from the lower latency and in-country processing options the Local Zone in Hanoi now enables.
Address Service: DataCore's Address Service validates, standardizes, and geocodes Vietnamese postal addresses in real time. Enterprise clients using the Address Service for delivery logistics, KYC workflows, or customer onboarding typically integrate the service as a synchronous API call in their transaction flow. When those client applications run in the AWS Local Zone Hanoi, the reduction in round-trip network latency directly translates to faster transaction processing and a better end-user experience. Address validation that previously took 60-80ms total round-trip can be completed in under 20ms when both the calling application and its downstream dependencies are co-located in-country.
eKYC Service: DataCore's eKYC Service performs real-time identity verification by cross-referencing Vietnamese government data sources, biometric inputs, and business registry records. Identity data - including biometrics - is among the most strictly regulated categories under Decree 13. The AWS Local Zone Hanoi provides a natural technical home for eKYC-dependent applications that require both elastic compute for peak verification loads and in-country data residency for compliance. By running eKYC client applications in this AWS extension and calling DataCore's eKYC API over the private AWS backbone, enterprises can minimize both latency and the data exposure surface involved in cross-border network hops.
Company Intelligence Service: DataCore's Company Intelligence Service delivers real-time business entity verification, corporate registry data, and financial health signals for Vietnamese companies. Risk management teams, credit underwriters, and supply chain compliance functions using Company Intelligence can co-locate their scoring models and decisioning engines in the AWS Local Zone Hanoi, calling the DataCore API with minimal latency while keeping sensitive counterparty data on Vietnamese infrastructure.
Beyond the direct latency benefit, the AWS Local Zone Hanoi opens an architectural pattern that DataCore clients have been asking about for some time: a fully in-country data pipeline. With the new Local Zone available, a Vietnamese enterprise can ingest data via DataCore APIs, transform and enrich it using EC2 instances in the Local Zone, store intermediate and output data in RDS or EBS within Vietnam, and serve downstream applications - all without a single data packet leaving Vietnamese territory.
To understand how DataCore's data services support data-intensive decision-making in Vietnamese financial markets, see our article on alternative credit scoring with Vietnamese data, which covers how non-traditional data sources are reshaping credit decisions in Vietnam.
Vietnam's Digital Infrastructure Moment - What the AWS Local Zone Hanoi Signals
The launch of the AWS Local Zone Hanoi is not an isolated event. It is one signal in a broader pattern of digital infrastructure maturation in Vietnam. Over the past 24 months, Vietnam has enacted Decree 13 on personal data protection, launched a national digital identity initiative, expanded the National Data Center program under the Ministry of Information and Communications, and attracted significant FDI into its technology sector. AWS's Hanoi infrastructure fits into this context as evidence that global hyperscalers see Vietnam as a market worth dedicated, in-country infrastructure investment.
For the technology vendor ecosystem operating in Vietnam - including data platforms, SaaS providers, and enterprise software companies - the AWS Local Zone Hanoi lowers the barrier to building locally-compliant products. Previously, a fintech startup or data analytics company wanting to serve regulated Vietnamese clients faced a difficult choice between regulatory compliance and infrastructure quality. This local cloud infrastructure largely eliminates that trade-off.
Vietnam's domestic cloud providers - Viettel Cloud, FPT Cloud, and VNPT Cloud - will need to respond to the competitive pressure created by the AWS Local Zone Hanoi. For customers who have been using domestic providers primarily for residency reasons, the Local Zone deployment offers a compelling alternative with a richer managed service catalog. This competitive dynamic is ultimately positive for Vietnamese enterprises, who will benefit from both improved AWS offerings and domestic providers responding with investment and service improvements of their own.
Looking ahead, the AWS Local Zone Hanoi is likely a precursor to a full AWS Region in Vietnam - a development that would bring the entire AWS service catalog into the country. AWS has followed a similar playbook in other high-growth markets: establish a Local Zone, build customer relationships and workload density, and then expand to a full Region once the market justifies the investment. For Vietnam's digital economy, the Local Zone is the opening move in what could be a much larger story.
Getting Started with AWS Local Zone Hanoi - A Practical Checklist for Vietnamese Enterprises
For enterprise technology teams evaluating a move to the Local Zone, the practical steps are straightforward. First, confirm that your AWS account is enabled for the ap-southeast-1-mnl-1 Local Zone identifier - you must explicitly opt in via the AWS Management Console under Account Settings. Second, extend your existing VPC to include the Local Zone subnet, which requires creating a new subnet in the Local Zone and associating it with a route table that connects back to your Singapore Region gateway. Third, launch EC2 instances in the Local Zone subnet and validate latency from your Hanoi-based endpoints using standard network testing tools.
For organizations with existing workloads in Singapore that want to pilot the Local Zone without a full migration, the recommended pattern is to move one latency-sensitive service - such as a session management cache or an API gateway - to the Local Zone, and measure the impact on end-user response times before committing to a broader shift. This lets your team validate the latency improvement in production without disrupting existing services.
From a cost management perspective, enable Cost Allocation Tags for your Local Zone resources from day one. AWS bills Local Zone usage separately from Regional usage, and without tagging, you will struggle to separate the cost attribution of Hanoi-local workloads from your broader Singapore Region spend. Set up Cost Explorer filters for the Local Zone resource prefix to track spending accurately as you scale.
For data compliance, work with your legal team to update your data processing agreements and Records of Processing Activities to reflect the change in data location from Singapore to Vietnam. Even if this change simplifies your Decree 13 position, it must be documented correctly. The shift to in-country processing is a material change to your data governance posture and should be reflected in your compliance records, vendor assessments, and any applicable regulatory notifications.
FAQ: AWS Local Zone Hanoi and Vietnamese Data Infrastructure
What AWS services are available in the AWS Local Zone Hanoi at launch?
At launch, the AWS Local Zone Hanoi supports Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, Amazon VPC, Amazon RDS, Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon FSx, and Application Load Balancers. Not every AWS service is available in every Local Zone - this AWS infrastructure starts with the core compute, storage, networking, and database services that cover the majority of enterprise workload requirements. AWS typically expands the service catalog of a Local Zone over time as customer demand warrants it.
Does the AWS Local Zone Hanoi satisfy Vietnam's Decree 13 data residency requirement?
The AWS Local Zone Hanoi is physically located in Vietnam, which addresses the territorial element of the Decree 13 residency requirement for personal data. However, full compliance requires more than physical location - your data governance policies, access controls, data processor agreements, and audit logging must also be configured appropriately. Organizations should review their specific Decree 13 obligations with legal counsel and confirm that their use of Hanoi's Local Zone is structured to satisfy all applicable requirements. DataCore recommends treating this in-country deployment as a necessary but not sufficient condition for Decree 13 compliance.
How does the AWS Local Zone Hanoi differ from the full AWS Singapore Region?
The AWS Singapore Region (ap-southeast-1) is a full-scale, multi-availability-zone deployment with over 200 managed services and the highest levels of redundancy and availability. The AWS Local Zone Hanoi is a smaller, specialized extension of that region, optimized for low-latency workloads in Hanoi. It offers a curated subset of AWS services but with latencies 5-10x lower than routing through Singapore. For workloads that require both the full AWS service breadth and in-country Vietnamese processing, a hybrid architecture - core services in Singapore, latency-sensitive or residency-critical components in the Local Zone in Hanoi - is the recommended pattern.
What does the AWS Local Zone Hanoi cost compared to running in Singapore?
AWS Local Zone services are priced at a premium over their Regional equivalents, typically 10-20% higher to reflect the additional infrastructure cost of deploying capacity to a secondary location. For the AWS Local Zone Hanoi, EC2 and EBS pricing follow this pattern. For most use cases where this AWS extension is the right technical choice - latency-sensitive applications, Decree 13 compliance, or in-country disaster recovery - the cost premium is small relative to the operational and compliance benefits. Organizations should model their specific workload costs using the AWS Pricing Calculator to get an accurate comparison for their situation.
How can DataCore's data services integrate with applications running in the AWS Local Zone Hanoi?
DataCore's Address Service, eKYC Service, and Company Intelligence Service are all accessible via REST APIs over the public internet and via private connectivity for enterprise clients. Applications running in the AWS Local Zone Hanoi can call DataCore APIs directly, benefiting from reduced total round-trip latency compared to Singapore-based deployments. DataCore is also evaluating a dedicated AWS PrivateLink or VPC peering arrangement for clients who want zero-public-internet data paths between the new Local Zone and DataCore's infrastructure. Contact DataCore's technical team via datacore.vn to discuss integration architecture and access the API documentation for the Address, eKYC, and Company Intelligence services.
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