Hyosung Chairman Cho: "Data Is the Oil of the 21st Century"

Hyosung (004800.KS) Chairman Cho Hyun-joon said he will extend the company's success story in power equipment, such as ultra-high-voltage transformers, into the artificial intelligence (AI) data center business as a new growth engine.

Hyosung-STT GDC, a joint venture between Hyosung Heavy Industries (298040.KS) and data center operator ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC), held an opening ceremony for its hyperscale data center "STT Seoul 1" in Gasan-dong, Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, the company said Monday. The facility marks the first achievement in about nine years since Chairman Cho formed a data center task force (TF) in 2017 and designated it as the group's future business.

"STT Seoul 1" is a hyperscale data center of up to 30 megawatts (MW) that combines Hyosung Heavy Industries' power solution capabilities with STT GDC's design and operation experience. It is designed to support a range of cloud and AI deployment demand.

While large data centers have recently been dispersing to the outskirts of the metropolitan area due to regulations and power supply chain constraints, STT Seoul 1 is located in the city center, close to major business hubs such as Gangnam and Yeouido, and is expected to minimize data transmission delays.

At the opening ceremony, Chairman Cho said, "I was convinced that data would become the 'oil of the 21st century,' and I foresaw an era in which AI competitiveness is national competitiveness. We will grow the data center business into Hyosung's new growth engine and change the paradigm of the global AI ecosystem beyond Korea."

In fact, all Hyosung affiliates are establishing differentiated business models in line with Chairman Cho's special directive to concentrate the group's core capabilities on AI data centers.

Hyosung Heavy Industries will secure both operational stability and power efficiency for AI data centers based on power equipment such as ultra-high-voltage transformers and circuit breakers, along with energy efficiency technology. In addition, building on construction capabilities accumulated through liquefaction plants and hydrogen charging stations, it plans to systematically secure AI data center-specialized technology and construction know-how.

Hyosung ITX will integrate its existing information technology (IT) business expertise, including cloud, content delivery network (CDN), and DX solutions, across overall AI data center operations. It plans to build traffic optimization and security management systems to enhance the technical reliability and stability of AI data centers.

"Hyosung is a company that possesses technological capabilities on par with the global power equipment Big 4, construction capabilities, and nearly 30 years of accumulated IT operation experience," Chairman Cho emphasized again. "The AI data center business is the crystallization of Hyosung's core capabilities brought together, and we must develop it into the group's future growth axis."

Meanwhile, the data center cooperation between Hyosung and STT GDC gained momentum following a 2019 meeting in Seoul between Chairman Cho and STT GDC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bruno Lopez. At the time, both sides shared the view that the data center industry would grow into a key infrastructure.

Subsequently, Hyosung Heavy Industries and STT GDC signed a strategic partnership in 2021 and established the joint venture Hyosung-STT GDC for the joint development and operation of AI data centers.