SK Hyper, the data center division under South Korean conglomerate SK Group, is currently in talks with big tech firms and financial investors to secure funding for a $350 billion data center plan, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
The firm's CEO Chung Suk-geun told Bloomberg that it aims to build 15 gigawatts of data center capacity in South Korea by 2035. The first 5 gigawatts reportedly cost approximately $350 billion, including equipment.
SK Hyper aims to secure the first round of external capital by the end of this year or early 2027, with further fundraising expected over the next three to four years.
The data center company is currently developing a 900-megawatt project in Ulsan, South Korea, alongside a 100-megawatt project for Amazon Web Services, aiming to finish the first data centers by 2029. Chung added that it is in talks with the government to secure more sites.
The CEO said it is open to working with other governments in Asia and the Middle East, offering an integrated package of computing capacity and AI models. He said that SK Hyper could start generating revenue as early as next year.
The data center unit was established in July this year under SK Telecom, the group's telecommunications arm and the country's largest wireless carrier. The telecom giant plans to invest 750 billion won ($567 million) in SK Hyper by 2030.
SK Hynix, another subsidiary in the group, is the world's second-largest memory chipmaker and a major supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips to global AI hardware leaders like Nvidia. The group has other subsidiaries with energy expertise that could help offset high electricity costs by improving computing efficiency, Chung told Bloomberg.