SK Telecom to invest 140 trillion won in Yeongnam AI data centers

SK Telecom announced Friday it will invest 140 trillion won ($91.5 billion) to build hyperscale AI data centers in the Yeongnam region of southeastern South Korea. The company said the first facility, a 100-megawatt center in the port city of Ulsan, is scheduled to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2027.

Additional centers totaling 900 megawatts plus one gigawatt will follow elsewhere in the region.

Expansion targets The company aims to reach 5 gigawatts of total AI data center capacity nationwide by 2029. Jung Jai-hun, the chief executive officer of SK Telecom, said the initial 5-gigawatt phase would require 2.5 million square meters of land, 3 million graphics processing units, and 2.4 million high-bandwidth memory chips.

Jung stated the centers would combine with existing manufacturing capacity in the region to support verification and expansion of manufacturing AI. The plan was presented during a public briefing in Jinju attended by President Lee Jae Myung.