South Korea Bets on Ulsan to Lead Its AI Infrastructure Push
▼ Summary
– **Ulsan to host South Korea’s largest AI data center complex (“AI Zone”)**, a joint project by SK Group and AWS, set to launch in 2027 and expand through 2029.
– **The project aims for 1 GW capacity with a ₩7 trillion investment**, positioning it as a high-performance hub for AI model training and deployment.
– **Part of South Korea’s strategy for AI sovereignty**, reducing reliance on U.S. and Chinese data infrastructure amid the global AI race.
– **Expected to generate 78,000 jobs and boost local economy**, with government support framing it as a “digital expressway” for national growth.
– **Ulsan chosen for its industrial capacity and energy availability**, offering a scalable, conflict-free location for sovereign AI infrastructure.
The industrial port city of Ulsan, better known for shipyards and refineries than semiconductors or cloud clusters, is about to become South Korea’s front line in the global AI race. In a major joint announcement over the weekend, SK Group and Amazon Web Services (AWS) revealed plans to build a massive AI-dedicated data center complex, dubbed the “AI Zone,” set to go live in 2027 and expand through 2029.
The long-term blueprint is bold: an eventual 1 gigawatt (GW) capacity across multiple phases, backed by a combined ₩7 trillion investment (about USD 5.1 billion), with AWS committing the lion’s share. If delivered as planned, the site would become South Korea’s largest AI-focused data facility, a high-performance base optimized for training and deploying large-scale AI models using services like Amazon Bedrock, SageMaker, and Amazon Q.
But this isn’t just about infrastructure. It’s a calculated move to build AI sovereignty in a region still largely reliant on U.S.- and China-based data infrastructure. And the timing matters. The global generative AI arms race is heating up, and nations are scrambling to bring compute power within national borders.
A National Strategy, Grounded in Regional Development
The political framing was unmistakable. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who attended the announcement in Ulsan, called the AI Zone “the next Gyeongbu Expressway”, referring to the 1970s-era project that physically linked Seoul to Busan and helped fuel Korea’s industrial takeoff. “We’re laying a digital expressway,” he said, “one that begins in Ulsan and will shape the future of our economy.”
Beyond symbolism, the numbers are concrete. Government estimates suggest the project could generate over 78,000 jobs, including data engineers, hardware technicians, and support roles in construction and maintenance. And the ripple effect has already begun: shares in AI-adjacent Korean firms like SK hynix and Kakao Brain surged following the announcement, briefly pushing the KOSPI index past 3,000 for the first time in three years.
For SK Group, the data center is a way to tie together its diverse assets, SK Gas will handle clean energy supply, SK Telecom will provide ultra-fast networking, and SK hynix may offer direct integration with high-bandwidth memory chips optimized for AI workloads. AWS, for its part, gets a firmer foothold in East Asia with more room to scale than in overbuilt markets like Tokyo or Singapore.
Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, made it clear this was not just a private venture. He urged the Korean government to become a direct buyer of domestic AI services, estimating that public-sector demand alone could support ₩5 trillion worth of projects over five years. “To compete globally, we must invest locally, and that includes the government,” he said.
Ulsan as a Test Case for Sovereign AI Infrastructure
If there’s a broader story here, it’s not just about South Korea. It’s about how countries are beginning to treat compute infrastructure as strategic infrastructure, akin to ports, power grids, and oil reserves.
While the U.S. is funding Stargate and NVIDIA is pushing sovereign AI stacks across the Middle East, Korea’s Ulsan project feels like a practical model: a deep partnership between industrial heavyweights and cloud hyperscalers, rooted in national interests but built for global capacity.
It also avoids a growing pain point seen elsewhere: local pushback. Unlike Seoul or Busan, Ulsan has ample land, energy availability, and a history of hosting mega-scale industrial operations. That makes it an ideal launchpad, if the government, industry, and regulators can stay aligned.
AWS VP Prasad Kalyanaraman framed the partnership as a convergence of cloud scale and regional strength.
When SK Group’s exceptional technical capabilities combine with AWS’s comprehensive AI cloud services,” he said, “we’ll empower customers across Korea to build and innovate with safe, secure AI technologies.
For now, it’s just land, contracts, and a shared vision. But if it comes together, Ulsan may offer a glimpse of how AI infrastructure will be shaped, not in Silicon Valley boardrooms, but in ports, power corridors, and quiet industrial zones that are just beginning to wake up to what’s next.
