Naver Data Center 'Gak Sejong' to be Completed by End of Next Year... City-Naver Establish Win-Win Model

Bird's-eye view of the Naver Data Center 'Gak Sejong' to be built in the Sejong 4-2 Living Zone Urban High-tech Industrial Complex. Provided by Sejong City

[Asia Economy (Sejong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Naver’s data center ‘Gak Sejong’ has broken ground with the goal of completion next year. Gak Sejong is Naver’s second data center in South Korea after Chuncheon and will be built on a world-class scale. Sejong City plans to collaborate with Naver on cooperative projects based on the data center construction to establish a win-win model between the region and Naver.

◆ ‘Gak Sejong’ to reveal its full form by December next year = On the 22nd, Sejong City announced that the day before, four organizations including Naver, the Administrative City Construction Agency, and the Korea Land and Housing Corporation Sejong Headquarters held a groundbreaking ceremony at Sejong Tech Valley (Jiphyeon-dong) in Sejong 4-2 Living Zone.

Previously, Naver signed a memorandum of understanding with the city in 2019 for the construction of ‘Gak Sejong’ and began site development work in October last year. The construction is scheduled to be completed by December next year.

‘Gak Sejong’ will be built in two phases on a total area of 293,697㎡. The first phase, which held the groundbreaking ceremony, involves an investment of 650 billion KRW to build a data center with a total floor area of 142,771㎡ on a site with three basement floors and four above-ground floors. The first phase data center will include a server building (101,112㎡), an operations building (37,764㎡), a dormitory building (3,782㎡), and a reception building (111㎡).

In particular, Naver plans to build ‘Gak Sejong’ as an eco-friendly data center in line with its ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management policy aimed at achieving carbon neutrality. ESG refers to a management approach where companies value not only financial factors for profit but also environmental friendliness, social responsibility, and sound governance.

To this end, ‘Gak Sejong’ will be constructed to preserve the natural state of the site as much as possible and will utilize eco-friendly energy and resources such as rainwater, waste heat, and natural wind for cooling and heating systems.

Previously, Naver established its first data center ‘Gak Chuncheon’ in Chuncheon, and ‘Gak Sejong’ will be the second nationwide. ‘Gak Sejong’ is significant as it is six times larger than the Chuncheon data center and aims to be a ‘hyperscale data center’ equipped with over 100,000 servers.

◆ City and Naver lay groundwork for ‘Sejong-type Digital New Deal’… Establishing a win-win model = The city is also promoting cooperative projects between Naver and the local community in line with the construction of ‘Gak Sejong.’

For example, since December last year, Sejong has been developing and operating the ‘Naver Neighborhood Market Shopping Platform’ to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the opening of Jochiwon Market. This platform enables online shopping at traditional markets. Currently, 18 businesses are registered on the platform, experiencing significant sales growth.

As part of cooperation with Naver, Sejong also operates artificial intelligence and software education programs (Software-ya Nolja Sejong) for local elementary and middle school students. This program was piloted last year at Dodam Middle School and plans to expand its target audience this year to include elementary and middle school teachers in the first half and 5th to 6th graders in elementary school and 1st graders in middle school in the second half.

The city expects increased local tax revenue and job creation effects from the construction and operation of ‘Gak Sejong.’ During the data center construction period, the city estimates a regional production inducement effect of 707.6 billion KRW, a value-added inducement effect of 253.5 billion KRW, and employment inducement of 3,064 people.

Additionally, the local taxes that Naver will pay in the future (estimated at about 8 billion KRW annually) are expected to positively impact the city’s fiscal soundness. As of last year, the top 10 companies in Sejong paid a total of 14.4 billion KRW in local taxes, and the city explains that Naver’s local tax payment will be the largest among single companies.

A city official said, “We expect Naver to become a strong partner that will help Sejong evolve into a leading smart technology city. We will support the smooth construction of ‘Gak Sejong’ and strive to discover and realize cooperative projects for win-win growth between the region and companies.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.