Samjong KPMG said on the 21st that it officially launched a "data center advisory center" that brings together companywide capabilities in real estate, infrastructure, and tax to meet surging data center demand driven by the spread of cloud and artificial intelligence (AI).
Through this center, Samjong KPMG plans to roll out an all-in-one service that integrates expertise across each area, including ▲real estate site selection and business feasibility analysis ▲financial advisory based on power and energy infrastructure ▲optimization of investment and tax structures.
The real estate institutional sector supports investors' swift decision-making by comprehensively analyzing data center sites and business viability. In the early stage, it reviews power and communications infrastructure, land-use zoning, and development costs; at the project financing (PF) stage, it carries out investor and operator sourcing, including due diligence and financial analysis. After development is completed, it covers the entire pre-investment process through valuation and sell-side advisory.
The infrastructure institutional sector, leveraging expertise in power, the core element of data centers, presents strategies for securing backup power and improving energy efficiency, and provides financial advisory such as capital raising and equity transaction. Working with the real estate institutional sector, it also proposes optimal business models that combine location and infrastructure.
The tax institutional sector analyzes tax issues in advance at the acquisition, operation, and disposal stages and prepares response strategies. With tailored tax advisory such as refunds for overpaid taxes, responding to tax audits, and acquisition tax filings, it minimizes investment risk and supports stable operations.
Samjong KPMG said it has experience in more than 90% of domestic data center advisory work and holds experience from about 100 specialized projects based on overseas projects carried out in the United States and Europe. It also presents practical strategies that consider both government policy support and regulatory factors, and provides customized solutions tailored to investor types and project characteristics. It can design investment structures optimized for various models, including colocation, hyperscale, AI-specialized, and overseas expansion.
Through this comprehensive advisory service, Samjong KPMG plans to establish itself as the only domestic one-stop integrated platform that provides all the specialized capabilities needed for data center investment and operation in one place. It plans to offer in-depth insights to market participants and help create a stable investment environment through investor seminars, policy-change briefings, and sharing of project cases going forward.
Jin Hyeong-seok, executive director and head of the Samjong KPMG data center advisory center, said, "Data centers have established themselves as the core infrastructure of AI and the digital economy," and added, "By comprehensively reviewing key elements such as location, power, development costs, and rental income, we will assess profitability and risk in a balanced way and support investors in making stable and efficient decisions amid a changing market environment, thereby strengthening the foundation for the sustainable growth of the domestic data center industry."