Samsung SDS Gumi AI Data Center, Gumi, South Korea

Samsung SDS is putting its newest AI data center where Samsung Electronics used to run a factory. The IT services arm broke ground Nov. 2, 2026, on the Gumi AI Data Center, a 60-megawatt facility rising on the former Samsung Electronics Campus 1 site in Gongdan-dong, inside Gumi National Industrial Complex 1 in North Gyeongsang Province.

The company approved the 427.3 billion won investment, roughly $319 million, in January, when it signed an agreement with the province and the city. Gumi gave construction approval in late August. Samsung SDS is targeting completion in December 2028 and full operation in March 2029.

Project Scope

The building sits on a site of about 47,000 square meters and will rise five stories above one basement level. It opens at 60 MW of power infrastructure and is designed to grow to as much as 120 MW in later phases, though the company hasn’t said when it’ll add the second tranche.

Cooling is split by load. Network, storage and other lower-heat server areas get conventional air cooling, while dense GPU halls get liquid cooling that circulates water to pull heat off the racks. Samsung SDS says server rooms are being laid out for a range of power densities so they can take ultra-high-power racks later. Major plant equipment is redundant, and the site gets its own emergency power system.

The business model drives the fit-out. Samsung SDS will run its own GPUs for AI and cloud services and also sell colocation space, where customers install their own hardware. Samsung affiliates plan to use the capacity for AI training tied to manufacturing and robotics. A Samsung C&T vice president attended the ceremony alongside provincial and city officials, but neither company has publicly named the builder.

Why It Matters

This is the first visible piece of the roughly 60 trillion won that Samsung pledged in July for Korea’s southeastern Yeongnam region. A data center on a retired factory campus is a sensible opener. The land is already zoned industrial, and a former electronics plant typically comes with heavy utility service that a greenfield site would take years to secure.

The hybrid cooling plan is the honest part of the design. Very few colocation customers today need liquid cooling in every hall, and building it everywhere would strand capital. Splitting the floor lets Samsung SDS sell both products from one building. The open question is the jump to 120 MW, which depends on how much more power the grid in Gumi can actually deliver.

Project Team & Details