▲ Jeong Jae-heon, head of the Korea Information & Communication Industry Association (and CEO of SK Telecom), delivers an opening speech at the launch ceremony of the AIDC Alliance held at Lotte Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 29th.
The government and industry have officially launched a public-private partnership called the AIDC Alliance to foster artificial intelligence (AI) data centers (AIDC) as a next-generation export industry.
The government presented a blueprint to build an 18.4-gigawatt (GW) AI data center and pursue an export industrialization strategy alongside the private sector, aiming to elevate South Korea into a nation that exports "intelligence tokens"—the output of AI computation—to the world.
The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) held the launch ceremony for the AIDC Alliance today (the 29th) at Lotte Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, alongside the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Financial Services Commission, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and some 400 industry, academia, and research institutions.
The AIDC Alliance is a public-private consultative body formed to implement the "AI Data Center National Strategy Industrialization" strategy announced by the government on the 29th of last month as one of its three major megaprojects.
The strategy includes building large-scale AIDCs with a capacity of 18.4 GW, industrializing exports for front- and rear-end AIDC industries, establishing AIDC clusters, and setting up large-scale testbeds.
It operates under a joint public-private chair system, with SK Telecom CEO and Korea Information & Communication Industry Association Chairman Jeong Jae-heon serving as the inaugural private co-chair.
The leadership group includes 12 companies: SK Telecom, Naver Cloud, Samsung SDS, NHN Cloud, LS Electric, LG Uplus, LG Electronics, GS, Kakao, KT, KT NF, and FuriosaAI.
Co-chair Jeong Jae-heon emphasized, "While traditional data centers were data warehouses that stored information, AIDCs are export factories that produce and supply intelligence to the global market. If you want to go fast, you can go alone, but if you want to go far, you must go together."
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon stressed, "U.S. big tech companies are also showing interest in South Korea's move and have signaled full-scale investment. We will not miss the 3- to 5-year golden time and will position South Korea as a nation that exports intelligence tokens worldwide across the entire AI full-stack domain."
Kwon Dae-young, Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, stated that the current 150 trillion won National Growth Fund will be expanded to 200 trillion won next year, with 30% to 40% of it injected into the AI, semiconductor, and power sectors. He added, "We will ensure that funds flow evenly not only to large corporations but across the entire ecosystem—including mid-sized, small and medium-sized, and venture companies—as well as regional areas."
The alliance will house three subcommittees and an Export Industrialization Task Force (TF).
The demand subcommittee, which will support the enhancement and verification of domestic AIDC technological competitiveness, will be led by Naver Cloud, while the supply subcommittee, responsible for advancing, localizing, and standardizing core AIDC technologies, will be led by LG Electronics.
Kakao will be in charge of the infrastructure subcommittee, which will promote AIDC-related legal and institutional improvements and talent cultivation, with the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) supporting operations as the executive secretary.
The Export Industrialization TF will establish strategies to enter the global big tech-centric AI training market and the open ecosystem-based AI inference market.
It also plans to formulate packages for exporting the entire process from AIDC establishment to operation targeting demand countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The alliance also unveiled its future implementation schedule today.
Beginning with the establishment of implementation roadmaps by subcommittee and TF in the third quarter of this year, the fourth quarter will see the first meeting of the leadership group, along with the finalization of next year's budget, the drafting of enforcement ordinances for the AIDC Special Act, and measures to create clusters.
In the first quarter of next year, the AIDC project group is scheduled to be established, and the designation of cluster special zones will be accelerated in alignment with the implementation of the special act.
The leadership group will meet on a semi-annual basis, subcommittees monthly, and working-level committees bi-monthly.
Co-chair Jeong Jae-heon stated, "The AIDC Alliance is the beginning of an alliance leading the global market in the AI era, and it will serve as a cornerstone for South Korea to leap forward as an irreplaceable AI data center industry powerhouse."
Park Dong-il, Deputy Minister for Industrial Policy at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, said, "We will build a materials, parts, and equipment supply chain ecosystem support system that leads from technological innovation and verification to market entry, so that South Korea can leap forward as a core nation in the irreplaceable AI data center supply chain."
Financial Services Commission Vice Chairman Kwon Dae-young noted, "As unprecedented large-scale investments are being made to build GW-scale large AI data centers, we will actively provide financial support through the National Growth Fund."
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon emphasized, "We will spare no support to ensure that large-scale AIDC investments do not stop at merely erecting buildings and filling them with servers, but lead to strengthening South Korea's AI data center industrial competitiveness across design, construction, operation, and overall cloud technologies."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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