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Riding AI ‘gold rush’: Vietnam tungsten giant courts foreign investors ahead of planned mainboard listing 

Masan High-Tech Materials plans to ramp up metal output from its Vietnam mine to tap ex-China supply gap for strategic industries

Jamille Tran
Published Fri, Apr 24, 2026 · 03:00 PM
    • A section of Vietnam's Nui Phao polymetallic mine, one of the world’s largest tungsten deposits outside China.
    • A section of Vietnam's Nui Phao polymetallic mine, one of the world’s largest tungsten deposits outside China. PHOTO: JAMILLE TRAN, BT

    [HANOI] In every gold rush, the biggest gains are not always captured by those digging for gold, but by those supplying the tools that make the digging possible. 

    Executives at Masan High-Tech Materials said they see the current artificial intelligence boom in similar terms, positioning tungsten as part of the “picks and shovels” behind the AI “gold rush” rather than a headline-grabbing end product. 

    Critical to industrial production from chipmaking to armour-piercing ammunitions, tungsten is now in an upcycle. The prices of ammonium paratungstate (APT) – an intermediate tungsten product – surged nearly 10 times over the past year to surpass US$3,100 per metric tonne unit (mtu).