Construction Begins on National AI Computing Center... Full-Scale Push for 'AI Highway'

The National AI Computing Center, a core project for expanding AI infrastructure, has broken ground in Haenam, South Jeolla Province.

The Ministry of Science and ICT held a groundbreaking ceremony for the National AI Computing Center today (August 3) at the Solasido Data Center Park site in Haenam-gun, Jeonnam-Gwangju Unified Special City, officially launching its construction.

Bae Gyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, said, "If just two years ago we were struggling to secure GPUs, now is the time for South Korea to leap forward as a protagonist in the AI market." He added, "The National AI Computing Center is not just a building or infrastructure environment, but a 'token factory' that will produce tokens for the entire world, serving as a foundation to export the token economy globally."

The center will be built with a total investment of 2.5 trillion won in the Solasido Enterprise City located in Guseuri, San-myeon, Haenam-gun.

It is scheduled to feature computer rooms, operation buildings, and auxiliary facilities across a 48,996-square-meter site, with a total floor area of 16,978 square meters (two stories above ground).

The plan is to build 15,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) by 2028, serving as a national AI computing hub that supports the training and research of hyperscale AI models.

For this project, the Samsung SDS consortium, which was the sole bidder for the Haenam Solasido location in a public offering held from September 8 to October 21 of last year, was selected as the final operator following procedures including technical and policy evaluations, financial reviews, and approval for investment from the National Growth Fund.

Participants in the consortium include Samsung SDS, Naver Cloud, Samsung C&T, Kakao, Samsung Electronics, Clush, KT, Jeonnam-Gwangju Unified Special City, and Seonamhaeantongsin (Southwest Coast Enterprise City Development).

Building on public priming investments and combining private capital and expertise, the public-private joint venture Korea AI Computing Center Corporation (KOACC) was also launched on June 10 of this year to exclusively handle the construction and operation of the center.

KOACC has filed an application for electricity use with KEPCO to secure the power required to operate the center and is simultaneously carrying out water intake pipeline construction.

The new building construction and the setup of high-performance AI server operation facilities will also be pursued together.

Aimed for completion in 2028, the center is expected to be equipped with the latest AI computing resources to support AI research, development, and service environments, while serving as a stronghold for vitalizing homegrown AI semiconductors.

Ahead of the completion, plans are in place to provide early AI computing services starting in 2027 by utilizing the Samsung SDS data center.

This is intended to proactively respond to infrastructure demands from industry, academia, and research institutes.

Once the center is fully operational, it aims to provide world-class AI computing infrastructure at reasonable prices to industry, academia, and research sectors, while swiftly responding to the government's demand for AI innovation to support the entire domestic AI ecosystem.

A research and development (R&D) zone will also be established to provide a verification environment for designing homegrown AI semiconductors and developing prototypes, and fostering the domestic AI semiconductor market through commercial services of verified products will be pursued.

Samsung SDS, the representative company of the consortium, stated, "Beyond providing AI computing resources, we will play a core infrastructure role supporting the entire process of AI technology development, including developing industry-specific AI models, supporting large-scale AI training and inference environments, and demonstrating and verifying AI services."

It also conveyed, "We plan to promote various support programs, such as providing vouchers and offering rate discounts, so that startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, and academic and research institutions can utilize AI infrastructure more easily."

The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to actively review policy support measures, such as demand linkage and securing funds for the stable early operation of the center, in cooperation with the Financial Services Commission and other entities.

However, it has not yet been finalized how much of the GPU resources will be allocated to public sectors such as industry, academia, and research.

Oh Tae-won, head of the AI Computing Service Division at KOACC, said, "Although KOACC is a private company, we will prioritize public demand over private demand in alignment with the purpose of the project."

Regarding the revenue structure, he explained, "We will secure power cost competitiveness by utilizing Solasido's abundant renewable energy and build a sustainable operational structure."

Today's groundbreaking ceremony was attended by figures from the government, parliament, local governments, the private consortium, and institutions including Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Gyung-hoon, lawmakers Park Ji-won, Ahn Do-geol, and Han Jun-ho, Jeonnam-Gwangju Unified Special Mayor Min Hyung-bae, KOACC CEO Ahn Jung-tae, Samsung SDS CEO Lee Jun-hee, Naver Cloud CEO Kim Yu-won, the Korea Development Bank, the Industrial Bank of Korea, and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA).

Deputy Prime Minister Bae Gyung-hoon said, "Through the National AI Computing Center, we plan to contribute to securing full-stack AI competitiveness and leap forward as an Asian AI infrastructure hub." He added, "Based on abundant renewable energy and expandable sites, it will emerge as a core base for three mega-projects, becoming a balanced development model where the region and the country grow together."

(Photo: Provided by Samsung SDS, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.