South Korean companies plan gigawatt-scale data centers
The story so far
South Korean companies KT, SK Telecom, Naver, and NHN Cloud plan to build gigawatt-scale data centers to meet AI demand, but existing facilities have capacities of only tens to hundreds of megawatts. KT and SK Telecom's data center capacities are 152MW and 137MW, respectively, which are only 13% to 15% of their respective 1GW planning targets. SK Telecom plans to expand the total capacity of its existing facilities and the under-construction data centers in Ulsan and Geumnae to 318MW through SK Horizon; Naver plans to expand the capacities of its two data centers, GAK Chuncheon and GAK Sejong, in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, and Sejong City, to over 130MW by 2029. These companies still need to invest heavily and spend a considerable amount of time to join the ranks of data center operators with 1GW capacity.
AI-written from the reports · Updated yesterday
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- ITHome · AISouth Korean companies ambitious plans for gigawatt-level data centers, but currently only have megawatt-level scale facilities implemented
South Korean companies such as KT, SK Telecom, Naver, and NHN Cloud plan to build gigawatt-level data centers to meet AI demand, but existing facilities have a capacity of only tens to hundreds of megawatts. The capacity of data centers operated by KT and SK Telecom is 152MW and 137MW, respectively, which is only 13% to 15% of their respective 1GW planning targets. South Korean companies may therefore fall into a vicious cycle of losing customers and delayed expansion plans.
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