LG CNS to build AI data center in Vietnam, accelerating Southeast Asia push

LG CNS Co. will build a hyperscale artificial intelligence data center for Vietnam’s state-run telecom giant Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), marking the South Korean IT services firm’s second major Southeast Asian win in a week.

The company announced on Tuesday that it signed the agreement with VNPT and Korea Investment Real Asset Management during the Korea-Vietnam Business Forum in Seoul.

VNPT, a leading ICT company in Vietnam, has been heavily investing in data centers, cloud computing, smart cities and other digital transformation projects.

The partners will form a joint team of experts to oversee the AI-ready data center project, with LG CNS providing AI and cloud technology know-how as well as data center design and operations capabilities.

The project follows a $72 million contract secured in Indonesia last week, when LG CNS became the first Korean company to win an overseas AI data center project.

Both ventures are expected to speed up the Korean IT service firm’s push to capture a share of Southeast Asia’s rapidly expanding digital infrastructure market, projected to grow from $13.7 billion in 2024 to $30.5 billion by 2030, according to research firm Arizton Advisory & Intelligence.

LG CNS plans to advance into the AI infrastructure market in Singapore, Malaysia and beyond in the region.

ACCELERATED AI DRIVE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

LG CNS said the collaboration will extend beyond construction to include servers, storage hardware and networking systems, ensuring the center is equipped for high-performance AI workloads.

As in the Indonesia project, the Vietnam facility is expected to draw on technologies from LG CNS sibling companies under their parent LG Group, including LG Electronics Inc.'s cooling systems and LG Energy Solution Ltd.'s battery solutions.

In Indonesia, LG CNS will build an AI-ready hyperscale data center in Jakarta capable of housing more than 100,000 servers, with an initial capacity of 30 megawatts and expansion plans to 220 MW, making it the largest in the country.

That facility will feature hybrid air-and-liquid cooling, GPU-optimized infrastructure and high-density racks up to 130 kilowatts, nearly 24 times the capacity of typical data centers.

LG CNS also plans to broaden its collaboration with VNPT in smart engineering, including smart factories and logistics, the Korean company said.

The Vietnamese government has made digital transformation and the digital economy national priorities, pursuing initiatives such as factory automation and smart logistics infrastructure.

The two companies aim to leverage their technical expertise and track records to create smart engineering models tailored to the Vietnamese market.

LG CNS, Korea’s leading data center design, building and operating company, currently runs nine data centers at home, several of which it built itself.

Write to Ji-Hee Choi at mymasaki@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.