[Edaily Reporter Shin Yeong-bin ] Samsung SDS (SAMSUNG SDS CO., LTD.(018260)) plans to expand the scale of its AI infrastructure business to over 800 megawatts (MW) by 2031 to meet demand for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and graphics processing unit (GPU) services. With more than 90% of the NVIDIA “B300”—the company’s latest GPU—already deployed in customer services, Samsung SDS also plans to aggressively expand its AI Transformation (AX) business in the financial and public sectors.

During its second-quarter 2026 earnings conference call on the 30th, Samsung SDS announced plans to expand its AI infrastructure capacity—currently approximately 110 MW—to 230 MW by 2029 and to over 800 MW by 2031.

Starting with the West Wing of the Dongtan Data Center this year, the company plans to sequentially bring the Haenam Korea AI Computing Center online in 2028 and the Gumi AI Data Center in 2029.

Lee Jun-hee, CEO of Samsung SDS, stated, “The market environment, where a shortage of AI infrastructure supply persists, presents a significant growth opportunity for Samsung SDS,” adding, “We will secure various business opportunities to strengthen our position in the AI infrastructure market.”

The company is also diversifying its business models. Samsung SDS will pursue a “CAPEX model,” in which it directly builds and owns data centers; an “equity investment model,” where it invests a portion of the capital in projects; and an “Enterprise DBO model,” in which it is entrusted with the design, construction, and operation of data centers. The company secured its first DBO contract in the first quarter of this year, and additional business opportunities are taking shape in the second quarter.

A Samsung SDS official explained, “While the CAPEX model primarily focuses on demand from affiliated companies, we are also discussing data center collaborations with global frontier AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic,” adding, “The DBO business centers on external customers, and we are actively pursuing partnerships with asset management firms and others.”

Demand for the latest GPUs is also growing rapidly. The NVIDIA B300, which Samsung SDS proactively adopted last March—making it the first among domestic cloud service providers (CSPs) to do so—has now seen more than 90% of its inventory deployed for customer services. The company anticipates that the B300 will be fully operational starting in the third quarter and is reviewing additional GPU investments.

Kim Eun-young, Vice President of the Cloud Services Business Division at Samsung SDS, said, “We made an initial investment in the B300 to launch services first among domestic CSPs, and currently more than 90% of the units are being used for customer services,” adding, “We are internally reviewing plans to invest further in the B300 as well as next-generation GPUs and NPUs.”

Last July, Samsung SDS integrated FuriosaAI’s second-generation neural processing unit (NPU), “Renegade,” into the Samsung Cloud Platform (SCP). The company plans to reduce AI service costs and improve infrastructure utilization by applying intelligent inference routing technology that allocates GPUs and NPUs according to task characteristics. The Haenam Korea AI Computing Center completed the establishment of a special-purpose company (SPC) in June and is scheduled to break ground in August.

The expansion of AI infrastructure is driving growth in the company’s external cloud business. Samsung SDS’s second-quarter cloud revenue reached 779.4 billion won, a 17% increase year-over-year. External cloud revenue grew by 75% during the same period, driven by an increase in new customers across the financial, public sector, and shipbuilding industries.

In the financial sector, following the Woori Bank Agent AI Banking project in May, Samsung SDS secured a contract in July to build a generative AI system for the Export-Import Bank of Korea. It has also secured contracts to build data platforms for three of the four major commercial banks in Korea. Samsung SDS’s strategy is to leverage these data platforms to secure a leading position in large-scale AX and next-generation system projects in the financial sector during the second half of the year.

In the public sector, the company is accelerating the rollout of BritiWorks and Briti Copilot. This year’s government intelligent work management platform project covers a total of 47 ministries and 180,000 users. Samsung SDS aims to secure 30 ministries and 130,000 users as customers by the end of the year. Currently, nine of the ministries targeted for the second phase of the project have confirmed the adoption of Samsung SDS’s solutions.

Song Hae-gu, Executive Vice President and Head of the Solutions Business Division at Samsung SDS, said, “If we secure the targeted ministries and users by the end of this year, we expect to generate stable recurring revenue starting next year,” adding, “We are also expanding our business to include education offices, local governments, and public corporations and agencies.”

Samsung SDS also expressed confidence in the growth and recovery of profitability in its IT services business during the second half of the year. The company projected that IT services revenue for the second half would grow in the high single digits, driven primarily by cloud services, while annual revenue is expected to increase by the mid-single digits. The annual operating profit margin for IT services is forecast to exceed 10%, with the second-half margin recovering to around 12%, in line with the previous year’s level.

Kim Tae-ho, Executive Vice President of Management Support at Samsung SDS, said, “We will recover to normal levels after overcoming the impact of the one-time provision for retirement benefits recorded in the first quarter,” adding, “We expect to restore the IT services operating profit margin to around 12% through increased revenue in the public and financial sectors and profitability improvement initiatives in the second half.”

Samsung SDS’s consolidated revenue for the second quarter was 3.7178 trillion won, a 5.9% increase year-over-year. Operating profit rose 0.7% to 231.8 billion won. IT services revenue totaled 1.7625 trillion won with an operating profit of 203.0 billion won, while logistics revenue reached 1.9553 trillion won with an operating profit of 28.8 billion won.

The company is also expanding its digital asset business. In May, Samsung SDS, together with SamsungSecurities and SAMSUNG CARD CO., LTD., acquired a 4% stake in Dunamu. CEO Lee Jun-hee stated, “This is not a financial investment but a strategic investment to enter the digital asset infrastructure business,” adding, “We plan to combine Namuga Co.,Ltd.’s blockchain operational expertise with Samsung SDS’s capabilities in IT services, AI, cloud, and security to develop stablecoin infrastructure, virtual asset-based financial system integration (SI), and AI-based next-generation payment services.”

CEO Lee added, “We will proactively invest in AI infrastructure and organically integrate our AI platforms, solutions, and service capabilities,” noting, “We will also continue to identify inorganic growth opportunities, such as strategic investments and mergers and acquisitions, to strengthen our mid- to long-term growth momentum.”