Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, teams up with Korean institutional investors, to establish a massive data center in Korea’s city of Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. 900 billion won (US$ 705.3 million) of funds were raised for the construction of the new facility, aiming for completion by 2026.
GIC, which plays a key role in the development project, is a government-owned company established in 1981 to manage Singapore’s overseas investments, overlooking 900 trillion won (US$ 705.6 billion) of assets.
This is not the first time GIC played a key part in building data centers in Korea. Earlier, GIC in a joint venture with U.S. data center REIT company, Equinix, agreed to build an xScale data center in Seoul, aiming for completion this year.
Increased foreign investments focused on building data centers are being noticed in the Korean commercial real estate market amid challenging market conditions plagued with a series of interest rate hikes in recent years. Compared to office space, data centers are being considered as stable investments ensuring continued income stream and market growth.
According to Research and Markets, the Korean data center market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.89% from 2022 to 2028 at US$ 6.74 billion by 2028. This is fueled by increased foreign investments building data center facilities in the country.
The Canada Pension Investment Board and Pacific Asset Management are developing the ‘Jukjeon Pacific Sunny Data Center’ in Yongin, Gyeoggi province for completion next year. Goldman Sachs also recently announced around 2 trillion won (US$ 1.6 billion) of investment plans for building logistics and data centers in Korea.
