South Korea Unveils Plans for AI Complex in Gwangju

The South Korean government is set to invest ~$100 million into an AI infrastructure complex in Gwangju.

The industrial park will include a data center and facilities specifically related to automotive and energy, two sectors chosen by the city.

South Korea’s science minister said that work on the site in Gwangju, 200 miles from Seoul, would focus on completing its data center first.

Looking ahead

The Korean government said it would spend more than $90 million this year on data center construction, IT purchasing, and hiring more than 1,000 AI experts to work in Gwangju.

The data center is expected to offer computational capacity of 88.5 petaflops, and 107 petabytes of storage.

Korean AI complex map

The ground on the site was broken last November, with the complex including offices for 80 companies.

The industrial park is expected to be completed by 2024, with the country’s science ministry confirming that a second, similar project will begin in 2025, with the intent of making Gwangju a global hub for AI.

“As the AI-based core infrastructure of the Republic of Korea, Gwangju's AI industrial convergence complex is expected to become a forward base, helping Korea leap beyond the information and communications powerhouse in the post-COVID-19 era into an AI powerhouse,” president Moon Jae-in said last year.