Naver is expanding its data center in Sejong, South Korea, to meet growing AI demand.

As reported by Chosun Biz, the company is going to develop both the second and third phases of construction on the Gak Sejong campus simultaneously.

The first phase of construction was launched in November 2023. The site spans 290,000 sqm (3.1 million sq ft) and is planned to reach 270MW of capacity, and aims to be able to host 600,000 servers, running Naver's cloud services.

Gak Sejong spans five floors, three below ground and two above ground. The data center is designed to withstand an earthquake magnitude of 7.0.

At the time of the first phase launch, Naver said the second phase would begin in 2025.

Noh Sang-min, head of the Naver Cloud data center, said: “As the pace of AI data growth accelerates, we are proceeding with phase-two and phase-three expansions simultaneously. We plan to break ground by January at the latest, complete the phase-two expansion in 2028, and complete the phase-three expansion in 2029.”

According to Chosun Biz, a total of six phases are eventually planned.

The currently operating part of the data center is using natural air cooling via the hybrid system Namu III Air Membrane Unit.

According to Noh, phases two and three will bring in direct liquid cooling systems as the basic design to enable Naver to increase rack densities to between 30 and 50kW, and more advanced GPUs require more power. Naver is also testing the feasibility of immersion cooling.

Lee Sang-jun, Naver Cloud's (CIO), added: “AI infrastructure competitiveness depends not only on the number of GPUs corporations have secured but also on how stably and efficiently those resources are operated.“Unlike big tech that makes massive investments in AI businesses, we must pursue an efficient approach.”

Earlier this year, Naver revealed plans for a 500MW data center campus in Morocco. It is also reportedly set to deploy 60,000 Nvidia GPUs in partnership with LG AI Research, SK Telecom, NC AI, and Upstage in a deal signed this week.

Naver offers public cloud services through its multi-region Ncloud and its on-premise Neurocloud service.

Naver Cloud currently lists six cloud regions in South Korea, as well as one each in Japan, Germany, Singapore, and the US (West Coast); future regions are planned in the US (East Coast), Vietnam, Taiwan, and Thailand. It previously exited Hong Kong. The company also lists plans for a 10MW site in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a capacity totaling 40MW across Sweden.