South Korea Plans 18.4 GW of AI Data Center Capacity by 2035, With Grid Access a Core Constraint

South Korea is positioning AI data centers as strategic infrastructure alongside semiconductors and physical AI under a government megaproject framework. The programme targets 18.4 GW of aggregate AI data center capacity by 2035, with estimated annual electricity demand of about 121 TWh at that scale.

The initial planned phase totals 8.4 GW. SK Group is allocated 5 GW of phase capacity, GS Group 2.4 GW and Naver 1 GW. These are planned capacities rather than commissioned facilities.

Separate corporate plans also point to large-scale AI infrastructure development. Naver plans capacity of 55 MW in the first half of 2027, 100 MW by the end of 2027 and 200 MW in 2028, with a longer-term infrastructure target of 1 GW. SK Telecom plans an AI factory of up to 2 GW. The source also reports planned NVIDIA and Brookfield financing, but these arrangements have not been independently confirmed in the provided materials.

Power availability is likely to be the principal constraint on delivery. As of March 2026, 522 data center projects representing 33.6 GW had applied for an initial grid-impact technical review in the Seoul metropolitan region, while only 10 projects had received final power-supply approval. The region had 663 MW of operating data center capacity in the first half of 2026.

This gap between proposed projects and approved supply suggests that grid interconnection, power transmission and the location of new facilities outside the metropolitan region could shape commissioning rates more than corporate capacity targets alone. The economics of the planned portfolio may also depend on international demand: Hanwha Investment Securities estimates that 64% of South Korea's AI data center demand would need to come from overseas by 2030.