CHANGWON — A public artificial intelligence data center has opened in Changwon, allowing small and mid-sized manufacturers in South Gyeongsang Province to use high-performance AI servers without buying their own.
The provincial government said on the 17th that it opened the Gyeongnam Manufacturing AI Data Center at the corporate support building of the Gyeongnam Changwon Industry-Academia Convergence Institute and began full operations. The province described it as the region's first public AI infrastructure.
The center consists of a server room equipped with 40 high-performance GPUs, Nvidia's B200, and 15 workstations, along with a real-time monitoring room. It provides integrated support for the core computing resources and development platforms companies need to build AI models.
The biggest draw is the pricing. The province will provide the infrastructure to companies in the region entirely free of charge through the end of this year, and from 2027 it plans to set fees far below those of private AI data centers. The goal is to drive AI transformation, or AX, in manufacturing at as many as 300 companies a year. Small and mid-sized manufacturers in the province have struggled to apply AI technology on factory floors, weighed down by the heavy cost of building infrastructure and the fees charged by private operators.
The center was built after being selected in October last year for a public competition under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' regionally led AI transformation program. Total project cost was 23.26 billion won. The province plans to develop the center as a forward base for testing and spreading manufacturing AI.
Choi Man-rim, vice governor for economic affairs of South Gyeongsang Province, said the center "will serve as a solid foundation for local companies that have had difficulty adopting AI because of cost and infrastructure problems." He added, "We will spare no administrative and financial support so that Gyeongnam can emerge as an AI industry hub leading manufacturing AX in South Korea."
