Singapore-based data center company Digital Edge is investing 1 trillion won ($791 million) to build a 120-megawatt facility in South Korea, which would be the country’s largest data center at its scheduled completion in 2024, according to an announcement on Tuesday. The deal eclipsed the firm’s previous investment in South Korea after it acquired two facilities in Seoul and Busan from Sejong Telcom in 2021 for $120 million.
“Korea has one of the fastest-growing data center markets and this investment forms part of our ongoing commitment to this dynamic country, as we seek to bring the next generation of digital infrastructure to Asia,” Samuel Lee, chief executive at Digital Edge said in a statement.
The firm is partnering with a local developer, SK Ecoplant, to build an environmentally friendly facility that will be located in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon. The facility is strategically located near the Incheon International Airport and Seoul’s major business districts. The first phase of the new facility’s construction will begin this year.
The new facility will accommodate the bulging appetite from local and international cloud providers and cater to other demanding applications such as hyperscale, large digital media, and enterprise deployments.
South Korea is a fast-growing market for data centers. On the same day as Digital Edge's announcement, Hong Kong-based real estate private equity firm Gaw Capital Partners also announced that it partnered with Korean private equity firm IMM Investment for investment in Dreamline.
Dreamline unit Dreammark1 is a company that operates a data center in Guro, Seoul that has a capacity of more than 1,200 racks and power supply of 10-megawatts. The firm, however, didn’t disclose the size of the deal.
“The surging demand for data centers in the Asia Pacific continues to grow due to increased Internet usage driven by the pandemic,” Kok Chye Ong, managing director – head of IDC Platform, Asia (Ex-China) of Gaw Capital Partners said.
According to the latest research by Cushman & Wakefield, Asia Pacific will become the world’s largest data center region over the next decade. The region has 4.1 gigawatts of data center project that is currently underway, an increase of 41% compared to 2.9 gigawatts in the firm previous study. According to the report, South Korea is ranked the fourth-largest market in the region.
