The South Korean government has finalized the Samsung SDS consortium as the private-sector partner for building the National AI Computing Center at the Solaseado corporate city in Haenam, South Jeolla Province, officials announced Tuesday.
The Samsung SDS consortium was the sole bidder when the project was put out to public tender in October last year and was selected as the preferred negotiation partner in March. On the 30th of last month, the National Growth Fund's fund management review committee approved capital contributions to a special purpose company (SPC) for the project. A total of 400 billion won in public-private investment has now been confirmed, comprising 116 billion won from the public sector and 284 billion won from the private sector.
Based on this, the Ministry of Science and ICT said Tuesday that it has signed an implementation agreement to finalize the operator and business plan, along with a shareholders' agreement covering equity contributions and the establishment and operation of the SPC.
The Samsung SDS consortium plans to complete the establishment of the public-private joint SPC within next month and break ground on the center during the third quarter.
The SPC will then raise additional funding to invest a total of 2.5 trillion won, building a national AI computing center equipped with 15,000 advanced AI chips by 2028. The center is expected to comprise an R&D zone providing an environment for designing, prototyping and validating domestically developed AI chips, as well as an NPU zone that will pilot neural processing units in the pre-commercialization stage before operating them for actual commercial services.
"The National AI Computing Center will serve as a model case for joint public-private investment and is expected to act as a catalyst for full-scale private-sector investment in AI infrastructure going forward," Deputy Prime Minister and Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said Tuesday. "We plan to provide active support so that Korea can grow into an arena of innovation where anyone can freely take on AI challenges, as well as an AI infrastructure hub for Asia."
