Macquarie is launching a new data center partnership in South Korea.

Macquarie Asia-Pacific Infrastructure Fund 4 (MAIF4), a fund managed by Macquarie Asset Management (MAM), this week announced a strategic partnership with South Korean cloud and IT firm Gabia Inc. to develop a hyperscale data center platform in South Korea.

Under a joint venture agreement, the two companies will invest approximately KRW 600 billion ($420 million) over the next four to six years.

The companies said the new platform aims to develop more than 100MW of data center capacity across key metropolitan and regional locations in South Korea. The partnership’s first project will be a 40MW facility in the Ansan area of Seoul.

Kim Yong-hwan, country head of Macquarie Asset Management Korea, said: "Our partnership with Gabia is significant in Korea's rapidly growing AI market, driven by proactive government investment, the adoption of AI across the manufacturing sector, and increasing demand for on-device AI.”

Won Jong-hong, co-CEO of Gabia, added: “This collaboration is a significant turning point that will expand the infrastructure capabilities that Gabia Group has accumulated to hyperscale. Through the Ansan data center, we will respond to the explosive demand for AI infrastructure and drive customer growth.”

MAIF4 will lead asset management and financing activities, including site acquisition, permitting, and project financing. Gabia, supported by its subsidiary KINX, will manage end-to-end service operations, such as data center design, network build-out, operations and maintenance, and customer acquisition.

The companies said the new Ansan facility will complement Gabia’s recently completed 14MW Gwacheon data center, which has been optimized to support GPU-intensive and high-density workloads.

Established in 1998, Gabia is a South Korean IT services firm, providing cloud computing, domain registration, hosting, and cybersecurity solutions. As well as its own facility in Gwacheon, the company operates out of data centers owned by LG and SK Broadband.

KINX, founded in 2000 as a neutral Internet Exchange, offers peering, colocation, cloud, and network services from eight owned or partner facilities around the Seoul area, as well as services from third-party facilities in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Macquarie is a major investor in the data center space. It has been involved in two of the largest-ever deals in the sector, selling APAC operator AirTrunk in 2024, and was part of the consortium that acquired Aligned last year. In 2024, the investment firm acquired a 40MW data center in Seoul via its Macquarie Korea Infrastructure Fund from IGIS Asset Management.