Hyundai Motor Group opens Saemangeum office as it advances AI data center plans
Hyundai Motor Group has opened an on-site office in Gunsan for its Saemangeum AI data center, a key piece of its roughly KRW 9 trillion plan for AI computing in Korea.
- KRW 9 trillion
- 200 MW
- March 2027
- Early 2030
What Happened
Hyundai Motor Group opened the HMG Saemangeum Office at the Jeonbuk Institute of Automotive Convergence Technology's Future Mobility Tech Center in Gunsan, Korea. The office is intended as an on-site base for staff supporting permitting, construction preparation and communication with local partners as the wider Saemangeum AI Valley project moves forward. A ceremony marking the opening was attended by Jeonbuk State Gov. Won-taek Lee, Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency Administrator Seong-yo Moon, Gunsan Mayor Jae-jun Kim and Seung Kyu Shin, Executive Vice President and Head of RH PMO at Hyundai Motor Group. The AI data center is described as a key project in the Group's plan for the Saemangeum AI Valley.
KRW 9 trillion
Approximate size of the Group's investment plan for the AI Valley in Gunsan, Korea, of which the AI data center is a key project.
The Group established a special-purpose company for Phase 1 of a 200-megawatt renewable solar power project to supply electricity to the AI data center.
Two more special-purpose companies are planned with Hyundai Motor, Kia, Hyundai Mobis, Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Hyundai AutoEver — one for data center construction and infrastructure, one for securing GPUs and providing GPU services.
Construction is targeted to begin, following detailed design and permitting.
Services are planned to start.
Under the plan, one of the two new special-purpose companies will oversee data center construction and infrastructure, while the other will secure high-performance graphics processing units and provide GPU services. The Group said it is also discussing technical cooperation with external partners and potential financial support for the planned investment, and that specific arrangements remain subject to further review and discussion. Once the special-purpose companies are established, the Group plans to proceed with detailed design and permitting.
- An AI data center
- A robotics manufacturing cluster
- A water electrolysis plant to produce clean hydrogen
- Solar power generation
- An AI hydrogen city
- Autonomous driving: Level 4 or higher autonomy requires continuous AI training on tens of millions of real-world road data points plus synthetic data from simulations of extreme conditions such as severe weather and unusual terrain; the center is expected to serve as a supercomputing hub running 24/7 training and validation of driving algorithms.
- Robotics: advanced robot behavior models trained in digital twin environments, including systems that perceive visual and linguistic inputs and act physically, services and mobile robotics that respond to unstructured environments, and multi-axis control for precision work in smart manufacturing.
- Vehicle R&D: high-performance AI applied from design conceptualization to crash testing, aerodynamic analysis and battery thermal management, to improve development efficiency and quality while shortening development timelines.
Why this matters
The data center is meant to give Hyundai Motor, Kia and group companies including Hyundai Mobis and Hyundai AutoEver the computing capacity to train Level 4 autonomous driving algorithms and robot behavior models, which the Group says could shorten vehicle development timelines. But construction is not targeted to start until March 2027 and services until early 2030, and the Group says talks on external cooperation and potential financial support remain subject to further review.
Terms in This Story
- Special-purpose company (SPC)
- A subsidiary set up for one specific project, keeping that project's financing and activity separate from the parent company.
- GPU
- Graphics processing unit; a processor that handles many calculations in parallel, which is what AI model training relies on.
- Digital twin
- A virtual replica of a physical environment or system, used to simulate and test behavior before it is used in the real world.
- Level 4 autonomy
- A driving-automation level at which a vehicle can perform all driving tasks without human intervention within defined conditions or areas.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.