GUNSAN — Trucks hauling soil, sand and gravel moved in and out of the Saemangeum National Industrial Complex in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, on the 11th, as landfill and site preparation work pressed ahead. Across the vast reclaimed expanse, now empty of any structures, only the West Sea visible beyond it signals that this was once open water. In District 7, where reclamation is complete and site work is under way, Hyundai Motor Group will break ground on an artificial intelligence data center in March. District 8 is still being filled in, and no tenant companies have been designated yet.
The Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency plans to build an advanced industrial ecosystem centered on robotics and AI, using Hyundai Motor Group's roughly 9 trillion won ($6.5 billion) investment as a catalyst. The group plans to invest in Saemangeum around five projects: an AI data center, a robot manufacturing cluster, a water electrolysis plant, a solar power business and an AI hydrogen city. The agency expects the investment to generate about 16 trillion won in production effects and create some 70,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The AI data center will deploy 50,000 graphics processing units to support training for autonomous vehicles and robots. The water electrolysis plant is planned at 200 megawatts to produce and supply 20,000 tons of green hydrogen a year. The solar project will build gigawatt-scale capacity to supply renewable electricity to the electrolysis plant, the hydrogen AI city and the data center. The AI hydrogen city calls for turning Saemangeum's waterfront district into a hydrogen-based AI city, including the introduction of a distributed hydrogen energy system.
The robot plant, in particular, will be Hyundai Motor Group's first robot manufacturing facility in Korea. It is designed to mass-produce more than 20,000 units a year, including wearable, logistics and delivery robots. "Hyundai Motor is a finished-vehicle maker, so it already has a well-developed parts supply chain," said Kim Jin-hu, head of the agency's robotics and hydrogen promotion team. "It can lead the robotics industry in a similar form." Kim added that the group is shifting into robotics as a new business area at the group level and is also trying to bring needed parts suppliers in as co-investors. "How the robots that are produced will be used is something not only our agency but also the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is thinking hard about," Kim said. "It is an area where we have to work together to decide in which direction to develop future industries."
The agency also announced a revised master plan for Saemangeum last month to keep Hyundai Motor Group's investment on track. It shifted the development approach from private investment to a public-institution-led model and moved up the timetable, so that 169.6 square kilometers of the 240.5 square kilometers originally slated for reclamation by 2050 will be filled in by 2035. Industrial land will also be expanded to 37.5 square kilometers from 12.1 square kilometers, a signal of its intent to supply land more quickly to companies that need it.
The agency's government budget proposal for next year was set at 222.2 billion won, up 7.4 billion won from this year, as the government moves to back the faster pace of development. New spending includes 17.5 billion won to prepare long-term lease land in the industrial complex, securing a site of about 70,000 pyeong (roughly 231,000 square meters) (about 231,000 square meters). Another 500 million won is newly allocated to build a Saemangeum robot cluster to support stable parts supply by small and mid-sized partner firms.
The agency expects chronic transportation problems to ease gradually. "Of all the living conditions for workers at tenant companies and for local residents, transportation is the worst," said Jang Chang-seok, the agency's planning and finance officer. "It was hard to get started, but expanding transportation services is the easier part." Next year's budget also includes 400 million won to set up a demand-responsive transport service to improve access.
