The national AI computing center has broken ground in Solarsido, Haenam County, South Jeolla Province. It has entered the construction phase after launching an operator tender last year, selecting private participants and establishing a joint venture.

The Ministry of Science and ICT on Sunday held a groundbreaking ceremony at the data center park site in Solarsido, Haenam County, in the integrated special city of Gwangju-Jeonnam, and began full-scale construction.

The national AI computing center is core infrastructure for the government’s “AI expressway” initiative. It will secure AI computing resources, including advanced graphics processing units, to provide research and development and service environments for companies, universities and research institutes. It will also support verification and commercialisation of domestically made AI semiconductors.

A key feature is that it is being 추진 as a public-private joint venture that combines public investment with private capital and data center operating capabilities.

The ministry invited bids for private operators from September to October last year. A Samsung SDS consortium, with participants including Samsung SDS, Naver Cloud, Samsung C&T, Kakao, Klush, Samsung Electronics and KT, was the sole bidder, proposing Solarsido in Haenam as the location.

After technical and policy evaluations, financial screening and approval for an investment by the People’s Growth Fund, the Samsung SDS consortium was selected as the final operator. At the time of the tender, the government presented a target of securing at least 15,000 advanced GPUs by 2028.

The ministry, the People’s Growth Fund under the Financial Services Commission, and the Samsung SDS consortium established in June a joint venture, Korea AI Computing Center Co Ltd, known as Coarc (KOACC), to handle construction and operations of the national AI computing center.

Coarc has completed an application to Korea Electric Power to use electricity and is carrying out pipeline work to bring in water. It plans to complete construction of the center by 2028 by building the facility while also carrying out power and cooling equipment work needed to operate high-performance AI servers.

Next year, before the center is completed, some AI computing resources will be deployed first at a Samsung SDS data center to begin services. The step is aimed at responding to urgent computing demand without waiting for completion.

Once the center is fully operational, industry, academia and research institutions will be able to use advanced AI computing resources at relatively reasonable prices. Computing resources needed for government-led AI model development and industrial transition projects will also be supplied.

A research and development zone will be created inside the center to support design, prototype development and performance verification for domestically made AI semiconductors. The plan is to apply verified products to actual commercial services so they can secure references.

The industry cites securing stable electricity and water supplies, the schedule for introducing advanced GPUs, and securing initial demand as tasks that will determine operational stability. The ministry plans to work with relevant agencies, including the Financial Services Commission, to support initial demand linkages and secure funding for the center.

Bae Kyung-hoon (배경훈), deputy prime minister and minister of science and ICT, said the government and the private sector would work together through the national AI computing center to pursue securing advanced GPUs and revitalising domestically made AI semiconductors in parallel. He said it would secure full-stack AI competitiveness and make a leap to become an Asian AI infrastructure hub.

He added that he expects the Solarsido data center park in Haenam to emerge as a key base for three mega projects and become a balanced development model in which the region and the country grow together.