•construction starts with 1GW Ulsan facility from 2027, backed by KRW70 trillion per site
•Seoul joins the global race to treat AI infrastructure as national economic strategy
The fact
SK Group plans to develop 15GW of AI data centre capacity across South Korea by 2035. Construction will begin with a 1GW facility in Ulsan, due to enter service in 2027, followed by a 5GW phase from 2029. The programme also includes projects in the Gyeongsang and Jeolla regions.
The expansion supports South Korea's national AI push, announced at the "Three Super Projects" summit on 29 June 2026, which targets semiconductor, physical AI and data centre clusters outside the Seoul metro area. SK Group estimates that building a standard 1GW AI data centre requires around KRW70 trillion (US$45.6 billion). The company plans to finance the programme through internal investment, strategic partners, long-term customer agreements and project financing.
The project builds on South Korea's existing strengths in semiconductors, power infrastructure and industrial manufacturing. Rather than viewing data centres as standalone facilities, the plan brings together compute, energy and chip production as part of a broader national AI strategy.
The assessment
The challenge for AI infrastructure is no longer limited to building larger data centres. Countries are now competing to develop the computing capacity needed to support AI research, enterprise services and digital industries over the long term.
SK Group's programme reflects that shift. The company is investing in infrastructure while supporting a national effort to strengthen South Korea's position in the global AI economy. Success will depend on more than construction. Reliable power, semiconductor supply, financing and customer demand must all develop at the same pace.
For BTW readers, AI infrastructure is becoming a measure of national competitiveness as well as corporate investment. The countries best placed to attract AI workloads will be those that can align compute, power and industrial capability into a single operating model. Integrated AI capacity is emerging as the sector's defining competitive advantage.
What to watch
Watch whether SK Group secures anchor customers, financing and power capacity ahead of the first facilities entering service in 2027. Progress on construction, customer commitments and similar national AI infrastructure programmes elsewhere will show how quickly governments are moving from AI policy to AI deployment.