Korea should spread its data centers outside the capital region based on what each facility does, a business lobby said. Rather than moving all artificial intelligence data centers to the provinces, the group argues policy should steer "training" facilities that run large-scale computation to non-capital areas while allowing "inference" facilities used for real-time services to sit close to users.
The Federation of Korean Industries held a seminar titled "Data Centers Today and Tomorrow in the AI Era" on the 29th at the FKI Tower in Seoul's Yeouido district, co-hosted with Song Ki-heon, chair of the National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, to discuss the direction of the domestic data center industry.
The federation analyzed 97 data centers in Korea and found that 78% of the 69 now in operation are located in the greater Seoul area. Of the 28 under construction or in the planning stage, 75% are also concentrated in the capital region.
A facility's function heavily shapes where it is built. AI data centers fall into two broad categories: training and inference. Training centers build AI models themselves using vast amounts of data. They have relatively little need to exchange data with users in real time, making them less sensitive to latency.
Inference centers, by contrast, use already-trained AI models to answer user queries or handle real-time services such as autonomous driving. Because data transfer speed matters, the closer they sit to clusters of companies and consumers, the better. As a result, training facilities can be located outside the capital region, while inference facilities need to be near demand centers such as greater Seoul, the federation said.
Policy should reflect that difference, the group said. Training centers are affected relatively more by construction costs, including land prices, than by distance from users. Using idle sites near power plants or in industrial complexes leaves considerable room to disperse them outside the capital region, according to the federation.
Data centers are also reconcentrating in areas with existing infrastructure abroad. More than 66% of global data centers to be built going forward will be located within existing clusters, or areas where data centers are already densely sited, according to the industry. Operators prefer locations that already have power, telecommunications networks, clients and workers in place.
That has prompted calls for Korea's data center policy to move beyond simple dispersal outside the capital region toward a siting strategy based on function and use.
"Data center investment must translate into stronger competitiveness for our companies and higher productivity across the economy," said Kim Chang-beom, vice chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries. "Along with building stable power and telecommunications infrastructure, we need an ecosystem in which companies, universities and research institutes can tap computing resources."
