Korea AI Data Centers Attract KKR, Brookfield Capital

The scale of the shift is stark. Samil PwC expects financial investors’ share of Korea’s data center investment to surge to 90% in 2024-2027 from 17% in 2020-2023, while the share held by telecoms and related companies drops to 10% from 83%. CBRE says the market is still in the “initial stages” of becoming an independent core yield-generating asset class, helped by specialized developers and global funds capable of underwriting multi-billion-won projects.

Korea’s private commercial data center market was valued at 3.6 trillion won last year and is projected to rise 54% to 5.56 trillion won by 2028. That growth is being pulled forward by the same forces reshaping AI infrastructure globally: surging compute demand, semiconductor build-out and the need for reliable power. The backdrop is a market where supply is constrained, buyers are plentiful and assets with pre-secured electricity are becoming scarce.

KKR is leaning hardest into the theme. The New York firm agreed in August to take a 29% stake in SK Horizon, a new AI data center infrastructure company spun off from SK Broadband, as part of a 3.08 trillion won deal for 49% of the vehicle. The platform will start with eight operating data centers and new facilities under construction, including sites in western Seoul and Ulsan, and is designed to reach 318 megawatts of capacity. KKR has already deployed more than $5 billion across Korea over the past six years in energy, utilities and digital infrastructure, and its latest move shows the firm views AI and electrification as linked long-duration bets.

Brookfield is making a similar wager with a different structure. In July, it teamed up with Naver and Nvidia on up to $9 billion of AI infrastructure financing, plus a separate $1 billion Nvidia investment in the Korean tech group. The plan includes expanding Naver’s Sejong data center from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts by 2028, with a special purpose vehicle buying Nvidia GPUs and data center assets and selling compute capacity back to Naver’s AI factory. That kind of structure matters because it ties capital deployment directly to GPU demand and recurring compute revenues, not just real estate rents.

For investors, the key takeaway is that Korea is becoming a regional proxy for the AI infrastructure trade. Keppel has entered with a 60-megawatt greenfield project in Ansan, and Macquarie has already bought an asset in Hanam and is separately backing a platform with Gabia. The message is clear: global capital is not waiting for a perfect cycle — it is buying into the bottlenecks.

Those bottlenecks may also create the next leg of the opportunity. Korea Electric Power Corp. had received 522 first-stage review applications for data center power as of March, but only 10 had final power-supply approval. That is not just a development hurdle; it is an economic moat for owners who already control electricity access. As AI facilities need far more power than conventional colocation sites, investment may spill out of the capital region into less dense areas where power is easier to secure, especially if anchor tenants can be locked in.

That geographic spread could widen the investable universe beyond Seoul, but it also favors the earliest movers with land, power and operating expertise. Korea’s shorter lease structure — with investors often targeting exits in three to seven years rather than the decade-plus horizons common in the U.S. — means scarcity value matters more than ever. In a market where initial rents can be discounted during ramp-up and annual increases run only around 2%, the real edge belongs to those who can create a buyer base before they exit.

Our thesis is straightforward: Korea’s AI data center buildout is still early, and the best way to play it is through the toll roads — the operators, capital providers and infrastructure platforms that control power and capacity, not the late-cycle landlords chasing yield. As long as global hyperscalers and REITs keep expanding in Asia-Pacific, pre-secured Korean assets should command premium pricing. The next catalyst is simple: more power approvals, more announced megawatts and more capital chasing the same scarce grid connections.