LG Electronics is increasing production capacity for cooling equipment for AI data centres in both the United States and South Korea. The company said on Wednesday it will build a new plant in Windsor, Virginia, and add production lines at its Pyeongtaek and Changwon plants. The investment totals 150 billion won, including costs to upgrade facilities. The expansion will focus on chillers, cooling systems that produce large volumes of cold water. Chillers are key equipment used for data centre cooling, from air cooling to liquid cooling.

The Windsor plant aims to start production in the first half of next year. It will have a total floor area of 32,000 square metres on a 170,000 square-metre site and will produce air-cooled chillers for AI data centres. The company plans to raise delivery speed and supply stability by producing locally in Virginia, which is called a "data centre valley" due to the concentration of big tech data centres there.

In South Korea, the company will build new air-cooled chiller production lines at its Pyeongtaek and Changwon plants. It will adopt a flow-line system that processes everything from the first to the last step on a single conveyor to raise productivity. It plans to gradually increase the flow lines at both plants by the end of this year and run multiple lines at the same time. The company plans to continue expanding lines and upgrading facilities at its global production bases.

LG Electronics has chillers as well as CDUs, which distribute cooling water, and cold plates that directly absorb heat generated by chips. It will expand the business by bundling this configuration into a "chip-to-chiller" solution. Cooling equipment is essential for AI data centres because they integrate high-density CPUs and GPUs and generate large amounts of heat. It will also combine cooling solutions with software that improves energy efficiency and power infrastructure solutions.

In North America, the company will strengthen its network with hyperscale data centre operators and big tech companies to increase project orders. In Asia, where demand is surging, it will broaden customer engagement based on project execution experience under "One LG". It will also supply One LG solutions to a hyperscale AI data centre that Indonesia's Sinar Mas Group is building in Jakarta. The approach is to propose LG Energy Solution's battery solutions together with LG CNS's capabilities in data centre design, build and operations.

Lee Jae-sung (이재성), head of LG Electronics' ES Business Division and president, said, "We will continue to strengthen stable supply capabilities in cooling solutions, the core infrastructure of AI data centres, and actively target rapidly rising market demand."