Hyundai Engineering said on the 28th that it has won a contract to build a 60-megawatt artificial intelligence data center in Gunsan, Jeonbuk State. The deal, valued at about USD 625 million, marks the company's first order since it set up a dedicated data center unit in March, roughly six months ago.

Details of the Gunsan SGC AI Data Center Project

The Gunsan SGC AI Data Center project will be built on a 115,702-square-meter site in Bieungdo-dong, Gunsan, with groundbreaking planned for October. The project represents the first phase of a 300 MW AI data center cluster being developed by client SGC Group.

Hyundai Engineering said it expects the work to secure priority negotiating rights for a planned 240 MW phase of the cluster. In the first phase, Hyundai Engineering will handle construction, civil engineering, equipment installation, landscaping and telecommunications work.

For the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems at the core of the facility, the company will be responsible for cooling and power supply equipment including cooling towers, chillers and switchgear, while KT Cloud will handle uninterruptible power supplies, batteries and automated controls.

Building for Nvidia's Vera Rubin Era

The Gunsan center will run on Nvidia's next-generation AI chip, Vera Rubin. Hyundai Engineering said power density and heat output per rack are expected to rise sharply with the new chips, making the ability to build power and cooling infrastructure that can handle those loads a critical capability. The project will also use modular and skid solutions from power and cooling equipment maker Vertiv.

Under that approach, power and cooling systems, including liquid cooling, are prefabricated at a factory and then assembled and installed on site, which the company said helps standardize quality and shorten build times.

Pipeline Could Push Orders to USD 1.4 billion

Hyundai Engineering plans to use the Gunsan order as a starting point to accelerate its expansion in the data center business. The company has been selected as the preferred bidder for data center projects underway in Incheon and Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, and is targeting contract signings within the year. If those projects proceed as planned, the company said its data center orders this year would reach about USD 1.4 billion.

Technical Credentials From Industrial Construction

The company cited its experience building large-scale power and mechanical systems for industrial facilities such as auto plants, electric vehicle battery factories and shipyards. It also pointed to construction optimization using building information modeling, high-load structural technology for heavy equipment, modular construction methods and precise temperature and humidity control as strengths it brings to data center work.

Expansion Beyond Construction

Looking ahead, Hyundai Engineering plans to expand beyond construction into operations and maintenance and investment participation across the data center business. It will also develop energy procurement models for data centers tied to renewable energy such as solar power, small modular reactors, and hydrogen.

"In the data center industry, superior infrastructure translates directly into competitive, stable digital services," a Hyundai Engineering official said. "We will use our best technology to build data centers with the stable power supply base and operating environment that the AI era demands." Reporting by Kim Kwang-soo for Seoul Economic Daily.

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