LG CNS finishes 30MW Jakarta AI data center, eyes APAC build-out

LG CNS has completed a 30MW AI data center in Jakarta — the first AI data center a South Korean company has built for an overseas client — and says it will now push the same model into Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan.

The company announced the handover on Monday. KMG, a joint venture between Indonesia's Sinar Mas Group and Korea Investment Real Asset Management, commissioned the facility last year under an infrastructure construction contract worth 100 billion Korean won (US$74.52 million).

"Completing the AI data center in Indonesia is a meaningful achievement, demonstrating our ability to bring the expertise we have developed in Korea to overseas customers and strengthening our competitiveness in the global market," said LG CNS CEO Hyun Shin-kyoon, as quoted by The Korea Times.

What did LG CNS actually build?

Phase one is an 11-storey building with 46,281 square meters of floor area, room for more than 100,000 servers, and a power system rated above 300 kilowatts per rack — about 60 times what a typical data center rack draws. Redundant power supplies keep the site running if the primary feed fails.

Cooling is where AI workloads get awkward, and LG CNS went hybrid. The first phase runs on air cooling, with liquid cooling to follow in later phases as server racks get denser. That sequencing is standard engineering economics, not a vendor breakthrough.

The group's chaebol structure does the heavy lifting here. LG CNS handled design, build and operate duties under its DBO model, while LG Electronics supplied the air-conditioning systems and LG Energy Solution provided the batteries — power, cooling and energy infrastructure delivered as one package.

How solid is the commercial case?

Unusually solid, by data center standards. LG CNS says it signed lease agreements covering 100% of the Jakarta facility before construction finished.

"We secured customers to lease the entire facility before completion, establishing a stable revenue base from the start of operations," said Yoo Ki-woong, vice president of LG CNS' AI and cloud business division, as quoted by The Elec.

That's the difference between a speculative build and a contracted one. Pre-leased capacity means revenue from day one, and in a market where APAC AI compute demand keeps outrunning supply, tenants evidently queued up early.

The next phase is already in design. Once complete, it will lift the site's total capacity to 400MW, which would rank the Jakarta facility among Indonesia's largest AI data centers.

Who else is chasing the same business?

LG CNS isn't alone among Korean incumbents sniffing around AI infrastructure. In November 2025, SK Telecom unveiled its own plan to become a comprehensive AI data center developer for overseas markets through global partnerships.

Six months ago, SKT and SK Innovation signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Nghe An province in Vietnam to explore building an AI data center and related infrastructure there. For SK Group, Vietnam marks the first overseas test of its "AI full-stack provider" strategy, which bundles AI, data centers, and power and energy solutions — including linking AI model development and validation with the rollout of industry-specific AI services.

So the pattern is familiar: two Korean conglomerates exporting integrated AI infrastructure the way they once exported chips and handsets.

What happens next?

"Building on this achievement, we will expand our AI data center and AI factory businesses in global markets, particularly across the Asia-Pacific region, where demand for AI computing is surging," CEO Hyun Shin-kyoon said. LG CNS has named its five target markets and has a 400MW expansion on the drawing board in Jakarta; expect site announcements across Southeast Asia and Japan as the DBO playbook gets reused.