Samsung Group IT service provider Samsung SDS announced on the 2nd of this month local time that it has broken ground on a new AI data center in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. The campus covers about 46,300 square meters, uses a hybrid cooling system combining air cooling and liquid cooling, and can accommodate various AI systems such as next-generation GPU servers. On the surface, it takes outside orders to do business, but the core purpose pointed out by Samsung SDS is more intriguing - to provide AI computing power support for the group's internal manufacturing robot transformation. At present, everyone is competing to put AI into production lines and machines, but Samsung is first stocking up enough ammunition for its own intelligent transformation before talking about exporting it externally. Its calculation is quite pragmatic.
Expanding from 60MW all the way to 120MW The project is initially designed with a capacity of 60 megawatts and will later be expanded to 120 megawatts, with an investment of 427.3 billion won, about 2.131 billion yuan at current exchange rates, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2028. In a super-large-scale race often measured in gigawatts, the scale of this facility is not astonishing, but the signal is very clear: whoever holds stable and dedicated computing power holds the switch for robot deployment. Samsung deliberately located the data center in Gumi, a major manufacturing town. Rather than chasing the trend, it is more like pre-energizing its own robot blueprint.
Building your own computing power is becoming standard for conglomerates For a conglomerate spanning electronics, heavy industry, and semiconductors, holding computing power in its own hands means the pace of transformation does not have to be constrained by others. When cloud GPUs are sometimes tight and sometimes loose, and prices fluctuate, a dedicated data center is more like insurance, allowing robot R&D and production line upgrades to proceed on its own timetable. This shovel of earth in Gumi is in fact digging into Samsung's long-term ambition to turn AI into the group's infrastructure.
