South Korea’s SK Telecom said on July 23 that it will set up SK Hyper, a wholly owned AI data center subsidiary.

The company will also invest 750 billion won (US$510 million) by 2030 to secure sites and build substations in South Korea.

The company targets 5GW of capacity by 2029 in the first phase and plans to expand to 15GW by 2035, depending on demand.

SK Telecom plans to start with a gigawatt-scale AI data center cluster in Ulsan, then expand to the Chungcheong and Honam regions. It also appointed Chung Suk-geun as SK Hyper’s chief executive.

SK Telecom had previously opened cloud infrastructure at SK Broadband’s Internet Data Center, suggesting the group already had some data center infrastructure before creating a dedicated development unit.

For comparison, South Korea’s installed data center information technology load is projected to reach 6.32GW in 2030.

The study said transmission constraints can leave new 80MW substations facing five-year lead times in Seoul, pushing some developers toward regional industrial hubs.

Industry estimates put infrastructure costs for a 1GW campus at US$8 billion to US$20 billion, suggesting SK Telecom’s budget is an initial allocation rather than funding for a full multi-gigawatt buildout.

🔗 Source: SK Telecom

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