GS investment in Donghae kept quiet at company's request; SK's Gangneung project still awaiting substation resolution
Task force to bring together about 10 provincial and municipal officials as 'one team'
Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province Governor-elect Woo Sang-ho said Tuesday that the first official act he will sign off on after taking office Wednesday will be the formation of a task force dedicated to attracting AI data centers to the province.
Woo called a press conference on the eve of his inauguration to address Gangwon Province's inclusion in President Lee Jae-myung's mega infrastructure project.
The task force will comprise about 10 members — provincial officials with relevant expertise joined by several secondees from Gangneung and Donghae, the two cities slated to host the facilities. Woo said the team will listen to companies and work through the details to ensure they face no obstacles in building AI data centers, that ground-breaking and completion proceed on schedule, and that business operations run smoothly in coordination with global big-tech firms.
"The industrial transformation announced by the president and business leaders on Sunday had been under discussion for some time and gained momentum at the presidential office from September last year," Woo said. "Through extensive debate, Gangwon Province emerged as an investment destination based on its objective locational advantages."
Woo explained that GS Group already operates a factory at the second general industrial complex in Donghae, which made the decision to establish an AI data center there relatively straightforward. He added that the company's name had not been disclosed earlier because GS Group had asked that it not be made public before the official joint announcement by the president and the business community on Sunday.
Regarding his pledge during the local election campaign in May to attract an AI data center to the Gangneung area, Woo said SK Group had made clear its intention to invest in Gangwon Province but that a substation issue — the infrastructure needed to aggregate and connect power — had yet to be resolved. He said he had toured multiple candidate sites in the Gangneung area together with company representatives to work through the problem. "Korea Electric Power Corp. and others are actively engaged and have indicated they will resolve it as quickly as possible, so I expect it will be sorted out," he added. Once the substation issue is resolved, the specific site for SK Group's AI data center will be determined and announced.
"The combined investment by the two companies in Gangwon Province will range from 50 trillion won ($32.4 billion) to well over 100 trillion won," Woo said. "At that scale, this is not just for Gangneung and Donghae — it is for all of Gangwon Province. I ask all residents to welcome and support this with one heart."
abc@heraldcorp.com
