Hyundai Commits Affiliates to Saemangeum AI Data Centre Build

Hyundai Motor Group’s Saemangeum AI data centre now has a construction date and a corporate structure. The group said on 30 October that five affiliates will set up two special-purpose companies in November to build and run the site in Gunsan, North Jeolla, with work due to start in March 2027 and services planned for early 2030, according to its English-language release.

The announcement turns a February pledge into money on a balance sheet. On the same day, Hyundai AutoEver, the group’s listed IT services arm, told Korea’s disclosure system that it will put KRW 114.6bn into the company that will buy and operate the data centre’s GPUs. That filing, rather than the ceremony that came with it, is the clearest sign the project has moved from plan to commitment.

Two companies will split the Saemangeum AI data centre

According to the group’s Korean-language release, the affiliates made a “final decision” to invest after a detailed review. One new company, the data centre SPC, will handle construction and infrastructure for what the group calls a hyperscale facility. The other, the GPU service SPC, will secure high-performance graphics processors and sell computing services from them. Separating the building from the compute is meant to let each side specialise and move faster, the group says.

Power is being arranged separately. In September the group set up a company for the first phase of a 200-megawatt solar project to supply the site, and the architectural review for the data centre itself has begun. Detailed design and permitting follow once the two new companies exist.

The group is less specific about who else will be involved. It says it is “discussing technical cooperation with external partners and potential financial support”, and that “specific arrangements remain subject to further review and discussion”. The Korean release adds that financing is being coordinated under a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Development Bank and others.

Hyundai AutoEver puts KRW 114.6bn into GPU services

Hyundai AutoEver’s filing gives the first hard numbers. Its board approved the investment on 30 October in a provisionally named company, “HMG AI Factory”, whose business is listed as GPU services and whose purpose is to run a GPU-as-a-service (GPUaaS) business. AutoEver will buy 1,146,080 shares for KRW 114,608,000,000 in cash, for a 26.0% stake. That equals 6.1% of AutoEver’s equity and 3.2% of its total assets.

The notes to the filing explain the shape of the deal. The joint venture will provide GPUaaS and cloud computing from the Saemangeum AI data centre, using another site until that is finished. The company is to be set up in November 2026, the payments will be spread over six instalments between 2026 and 2031, and the share count, amount and stake may all change if the venture raises more money later.

A robotics and driving hub inside the Saemangeum AI Valley

The data centre is the first large piece of what Hyundai calls the Saemangeum AI Valley, a plan worth “approximately KRW 9 trillion” that also includes a robotics manufacturing cluster, a water electrolysis plant for clean hydrogen, solar generation and an “AI hydrogen city”. The group signed an investment agreement for the valley with the central government and Jeonbuk State (North Jeolla) on 27 February, the provincial government said.

Hyundai wants the computing for its own engineering first. It describes the data centre as “a supercomputing hub for 24/7 training and validation” of Level 4 autonomous driving software, a place to train robot behaviour in digital twin environments, and a tool for vehicle work from early design to crash testing, aerodynamics and battery thermal management. That links the project to the group’s robotics businesses, including Boston Dynamics, whose Atlas humanoid is being pushed towards factory work.

To run the project locally, the group opened an HMG Saemangeum Office at the Jeonbuk Institute of Automotive Convergence Technology in Gunsan. Jeonbuk State governor Won-taek Lee, who attended with Gunsan’s mayor and the head of the Saemangeum development agency, described the opening as a new starting point that turns February’s investment pledge into action on the ground. “The HMG Saemangeum Office represents the Group’s commitment to moving the project forward,” said Seung Kyu Shin, the executive vice president leading the project.

AutoEver’s filing shows where the GPU risk sits

The structure says more than the ceremony. By putting the land, building and power in one company and the chips in another, Hyundai has separated the long-lived asset from the fast-depreciating one. A data hall and a solar farm can be financed like infrastructure over decades; GPUs bought for a 2030 opening will be judged against whatever Nvidia and its rivals sell by then. The GPU company is the part that carries technology risk, and it is the part AutoEver has now put a number on.

That number is modest beside the KRW 9trn headline. If AutoEver’s KRW 114.6bn buys 26%, the GPU company’s planned equity would be in the region of KRW 440bn at today’s terms, which the filing itself says may change. Spreading payments to 2031 also means most of the cash arrives after construction starts, so the group can scale purchases to demand and to the chip generation available.

The open question is who the customers are beyond Hyundai itself. A GPUaaS company that serves only its parent’s driving, robotics and engineering teams is a cost centre with a new name. One that sells capacity outside the group competes with Naver, which has signed a large compute deal with Brookfield, and with independent builders such as NeoAI Cloud in Pohang. Seoul’s plan to cut permits and parking rules for AI data centres helps all of them, and power remains the common constraint, which is why separate firms such as HD Hyundai Electric are chasing data-centre power deals.

What comes before the March 2027 start

The next steps are mostly paperwork. The two companies are due to be formed in November, and AutoEver’s filing notes that its first contribution needs no Fair Trade Commission filing but later ones might. Design and permitting must be done before construction starts in March 2027. The detail still missing is the bill: neither release gives the data centre’s own cost, its power capacity in megawatts or how many GPUs it will house. Those are the figures to look for when the companies are registered in November.

Sources

• Hyundai Motor Group: Hyundai Motor Group Advances Plans for Saemangeum AI Data Center (30 Oct 2026)
• Hyundai Motor Group Korean newsroom release on the Saemangeum AI data centre (30 Oct 2026)
• Hyundai AutoEver DART filing: acquisition of shares in another company (30 Oct 2026)
• Electronic Times: report on the HMG Saemangeum Office opening (30 Oct 2026)
• Jeonbuk News: Jeonbuk State government on the HMG Saemangeum Office (30 Oct 2026)

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