[Edaily Reporter Kim Hyung-il ] Semiconductor and IT company iA, Inc.(038880)announced on the 24th that it is entering the modular data center (MDC) business for artificial intelligence (AI). The company unveiled “NeoCube,” its proprietary AI data center design model, and plans to begin pilot testing starting this September.

iA, Inc. stated that it proposed the need for MDC standardization tailored to AI data center environments at the “2026 OCP Korea Tech Day” held at COEX in Seoul on the 21st. MDC is a system that configures the power, cooling, and computing equipment required for data centers in modular form, allowing for relatively quick installation.

iA, Inc. explained that as power consumption and heat generation increase due to the high density of AI servers, the power and cooling design standards of existing data centers also need to be adapted to the AI environment. In particular, as the use of AI expands from large-scale training to inference—which provides real-time results—the company forecast that demand for distributed data centers will grow, especially in sectors such as manufacturing, robotics, and defense, where AI computations are required close to the field.

At this event, iA, Inc. unveiled “NeoCube,” its self-developed modular AI data center, as a reference design. The structure integrates AI accelerators—such as graphics processing units (GPUs) and neural processing units (NPUs)—with power and cooling infrastructure, as well as private cloud, AI platforms, and services.

The plan is to integrate thermal management and cooling technologies from DCI Solution—an iA, Inc. affiliate—with power semiconductor technologies from Trino Technology and cloud and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) technologies from iA Cloud.

iA, Inc. also proposed “PF-eq,” a metric for evaluating actual AI computational performance relative to the power consumed by a data center. However, PF-eq is currently an initial concept presented by iA, Inc. and is not an official OCP standard or an accredited metric.

The pilot project will begin this September. iA, Inc. is currently manufacturing a 25 kW NeoCube and plans to deploy it in early September to verify AI computational performance, power and cooling efficiency, and operational stability. Subsequently, the company will scale up to a 100 kW system and pursue commercialization. The company aims to complete the entire process—from design to deployment—within three months.

Based on the data obtained during the 25 kW pilot, iA, Inc. plans to participate in OCP’s standardization discussions regarding the MDC.

Han Seong-yong, CEO of iA, Inc., stated, “AI data centers are moving into a phase where they must be evaluated not only by scale but also by power and cooling efficiency, deployment speed, and actual computational efficiency,” adding, “Based on the NeoCube demonstration data, we plan to participate in establishing MDC specifications and evaluation criteria suitable for AI environments.”

Ultimately, the key point to watch in this article is the 25-kW NeoCube demonstration in September, rather than the OCP standardization proposal. If the demonstration proves performance and operational stability and leads to an expansion to the 100-kW class and actual customer orders, the MDC business has the potential to establish itself as a new growth engine for iA, Inc.