The Ministry of Science and ICT held a groundbreaking ceremony for the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Computing Center on the site of the Solaseado Data Center Park in Haenam County, Jeonnam Gwangju Integrated Special City, on the 3rd.
The national AI computing center is a facility where the government and the private sector will jointly invest a total of 2.5 trillion won to secure AI computing resources and supply them to industry and academia. The goal is to begin operations in the second half of 2028. The center plans to secure 15,000 state-of-the-art AI Semiconductor units by 2028.
In the operator bid in September last year, the Samsung SDS consortium was the sole bidder for Solaseado in Haenam as the site and won the contract. The Samsung SDS consortium, led by Samsung SDS, includes Naver Cloud, Samsung C&T, Kakao, Samsung Electronics, Clush, KT, Jeonnam Gwangju Integrated Special City, and Seonamhaean Enterprise City Development.
The establishment and operation of the national AI computing center will be led exclusively by KOACC (Korea AI Computing Center). KOACC was established based on a public-private joint investment by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Financial Services Commission's Public Growth Fund, and the Samsung SDS consortium. KOACC plans to carry out new building construction and facility work for high-performance AI server operations in parallel to complete the national AI computing center by 2028 without delay.
Once the national AI computing center is built, KOACC plans to provide world-class AI computing infrastructure that industry, academia, and research institutes can use at reasonable prices, and support the activation of the domestic AI ecosystem by actively responding to government AI innovation demand. It also plans to create a research and development (R&D) Zone through the national AI computing center to provide a verification environment for the design of domestic AI Semiconductor and the development of prototypes.
The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to actively review policy support, including demand linkage and securing funds, in cooperation with the Financial Services Commission and others to ensure the smooth initial operation of the national AI computing center. Vice Premier and Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said, "Through the national AI computing center, the government and the private sector will join forces to simultaneously secure cutting-edge graphics processing units (GPUs) and vitalize domestic AI Semiconductor," adding, "We will secure full-stack AI competitiveness and leap forward as an AI infrastructure hub."
At the groundbreaking ceremony were Vice Premier Bae Kyung-hoon; Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers Park Ji-won, Han Joon-ho, and Ahn Do-geol; Min Hyung-bae, mayor of Jeonnam Gwangju Integrated Special City; KOACC CEO Ahn Jung-tae; Samsung SDS CEO Lee June-hee; and Naver Cloud CEO Kim Yu-won, along with officials from the government, the National Assembly, local governments, and corporations.