For the first time in over a decade, a shovel-ready project is poised to commence in Gangnam, Seoul, South Korea (“GDC”). Empyrion DC, Asia’s first green data center developer, announced plans on Tuesday to establish a 40MW data center in the district acknowledged as Seoul’s “Silicon Valley”.
Legal binding terms for full development rights between the Singapore-headquartered company and a local promoter have been agreed, with a proposed investment of up to US$400 million in the GDC, the company said.
Closing is expected to materialise prior to the end of September 2022, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Empyrion DC is a portfolio company fully owned by funds managed by Seraya Partners.
With the GDC being home to several of Korea’s largest conglomerates such as Hyundai, LG and Samsung, Empyrion DC’s project will alleviate the data center shortage in the district and the broader metropolitan Seoul area.
“Leveraging our deep local networks in Seoul, we sourced this exclusive transaction that wasn’t available in the market. As Seoul is running out of data centre supply, and as we plan to achieve ‘ready-for-service’ status in 2024, we already have customers requesting to lease entire floors,” shared James Chern, Chairman and Managing Partner of Seraya Partners.
The green energy data center will be Seoul’s first, with Empyrion DC partnering leading architects and engineers to develop the significant undertaking.
Additionally, the company’s in-house expertise in energy management and use of High efficiency Building Integrated Photovoltaic Panels (BIPV) on the 10-storey facility’s facade will achieve world-class energy standards.
The GDC project will join a pipeline of over 200MW of projects across Asia, as Empyrion DC’s second data center investment. Its first, SG1 Dodid, is located in Singapore.
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