[Edaily Reporter Yun Junghoon ] SK Group has announced plans to invest an unprecedented amount of funds—totaling approximately 1,000 trillion won in total project costs alone—to develop South Korea into “Asia’s largest AI infrastructure hub.” This is the largest-scale mega-project in history, involving the deployment of a staggering 3 million graphics processing units (GPUs), which will serve as the heart of artificial intelligence (AI). Just as the Gyeongbu Expressway once drove the “Miracle on the Han River,” the plan is to build South Korea’s new “AI Expressway,” starting from the Yeongnam region.

Jeong Jae-heon, President of SKTelecom(017670), attended the “Public Briefing on the Vision for the Development of High-Tech Industries in the Yeongnam Region” held in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, on the 3rd and made a surprise announcement outlining the vision for the “SK AI Data Center (AIDC) Project,” which centers on these plans. At the event, presided over by President Lee Jae-myung, SK presented the “Yeongnam Region AIDC Hub” as a key strategy for balanced national development and securing national security assets.

Building an AI data center with 3 million GPUs and 24 million HBM modules on an area equivalent to Yeouido by 2035

According to the unveiled roadmap, SK’s AIDC project is the largest in South Korean history for a single company. As the first step toward achieving 15 GW (gigawatts) by 2035, the company will begin phased openings of a 5 GW AIDC facility starting in 2029 as part of Phase 1.

Considering that it typically costs about 70 trillion won to build 1 GW of high-performance AI data centers, the completion of the full 15 GW is expected to require an astronomical investment of approximately 1,000 trillion won.

More than 350 trillion won has been allocated for the Phase 1 (5 GW) project alone, which is set to begin operations in 2029. The project site covers approximately 750,000 pyeong—equivalent to the entire area of Yeouido—and will house 3 million GPUs and 24 million High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) modules, which serve as the core processing units for AI operations. With an estimated annual power consumption of 50 TWh (terawatt-hours), this will effectively create a massive intelligent production hub equivalent to the combined power consumption of five major South Korean metropolitan cities.

140 trillion won

in the Yeongnam region alone… Not just a storage warehouse, but a “token factory”

The first hub to serve as an AI outpost will be the Yeongnam region. SK has already selected Ulsan as its first project site and is building a 100 MW (megawatt) data center in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), with the goal of bringing it online next year. SK plans to expand this facility by an additional 900 MW to secure 1 GW in Ulsan alone, and to gradually complete a total of 2 GW+α of AI data centers across the entire Yeongnam region.

The total investment in the Yeongnam region alone, including foreign capital, amounts to 140 trillion won. SK’s vision is to combine the region’s strength—its robust manufacturing capabilities—with the ultra-high-speed computing power of large-scale AIDCs. The strategy goes beyond simply building infrastructure; it aims to transform the Yeongnam region into a global outpost for driving productivity innovation in traditional manufacturing and for demonstrating and scaling “manufacturing AI.”

In his announcement that day, President Jeong stated, “If existing data centers were warehouses for storing information, the new AIDC is a factory that produces ‘token intelligence’ from artificial intelligence and serves as the core material for AI.” He added, “An AIDC with massive computing power is a high-value industrial asset that drives global innovation and a core national security asset.”

Partnering with NVIDIA to Launch ‘AI Factory’… All-Out Effort to Attract Global Foreign Investment for Funding

SK plans to secure the astronomical funds—which would be difficult for a single company to handle on its own—through a multifaceted approach that combines its own investment with long-term contracts with global Big Tech firms, project financing (PF), and external investments from financial institutions and strategic partners.

This project will mobilize the SK Group’s “full-stack AI infrastructure capabilities,” including SK hynix (HBM), SK Innovation and SK E&S (energy solutions), and SK Eco Plant (construction). At the center of it all, SKT will serve as the “AI infrastructure architect,” orchestrating the entire initiative and leading the charge.

In particular, SKT plans to build the “AI Factory,” a next-generation AI data center, in Korea in collaboration with NVIDIA. Just as a conventional factory processes raw materials to mass-produce goods, this infrastructure will densely pack cutting-edge computing resources—such as GPUs, CPUs, and HBM—to mass-produce AI computations and intelligent services at ultra-high speeds.

KTCorporation plans to begin operating the AI Factory in 2027 and expand it to a GW-scale in the future.

President Lee Jae-myung, who attended the briefing, commended the large-scale regional investment plans of major companies, including SK, Hanwha (defense and aerospace), HyundaiMotor (automated factories), and Samsung (humanoids and batteries).

President Jeong stated, “The construction of this AI data center is intended to proactively prepare the computing infrastructure required by the global AI ecosystem,” adding, “We will contribute to South Korea’s growth as a key AI infrastructure hub in Asia through close consultation with the government, industry, and local communities.”