Jeonnam Province Launches Initiative to Establish Global Data Center Hub

[Muan=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] Jeonnam Province has officially launched efforts to establish a global data center hub.

On the 15th, the province announced that it will actively promote the ‘Global Data Center Cluster Development’ to attract a large number of global data centers, which are core infrastructure facilities of the Digital New Deal, based on the province’s comparative advantage in renewable energy resources, and to foster the data industry in key industrial sectors.

Currently, the data center market is rapidly growing due to the surge in global data demand driven by the development of advanced industries such as artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous driving, as well as the increase in non-face-to-face activities.

In this context, South Korea is rapidly emerging as a global data center hub, offering safer conditions and lower electricity costs compared to other Asian countries such as China, which has weak security, Japan, which frequently experiences disasters, and politically unstable Hong Kong, while also having superior location advantages as an ICT powerhouse.

However, more than 80% of domestic data centers are concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area. Due to the worsening power supply shortage and the government’s push for distributed energy policies, domestic and foreign companies are turning their attention to non-metropolitan areas, especially regions capable of realizing RE100.

The province boasts the highest potential and production of renewable energy resources nationwide and holds many industrial sites that are safe from disasters and inexpensive compared to other regions, making it an optimal location to meet the RE100 demands of global companies.

Accordingly, the province has prepared the ‘Basic Plan for Global Data Center Cluster Development (Draft)’ with the goal of attracting 10 global data centers by 2030 and establishing a foundation for fostering data center-based convergence industries.

Going forward, the province plans to systematically implement three major strategies and 11 detailed tasks: ▲ Global Data Center Cluster Development ▲ Expansion of Data Center Convergence Business Models ▲ Establishment of Data Center Convergence Industry Infrastructure.

To realize this, the province has launched a full-scale project by forming the ‘Global Data Center Cluster Development Promotion Team,’ led by the Deputy Governor for Political Affairs and including three offices and 11 teams from the provincial government, Jeonnam Technopark, and Jeonnam Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency.

In addition, Jeonnam Province plans to establish a support system for data companies within the province by creating a data industry promotion organization and enacting promotion ordinances, as well as preparing related systems.

A ‘Feasibility Planning Research Service’ will also be conducted to carry out detailed field surveys and discover specific projects.

A Jeonnam Province official said, “We will focus our capabilities on utilizing Jeonnam’s abundant renewable energy base to create an eco-friendly data center cluster and leap forward as the center of the data industry hub.”

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