Warburg Pincus Buys Site for 80MW Greater Seoul Data Centre

Warburg Pincus has acquired a greenfield site in South Korea for development of an 80-megawatt data centre in partnership with Seoul-based Wide Creek Asset Management and digital infrastructure specialist DC Connects on the project.

The partners recently broke ground on the project in Yongin City in Seoul’s surrounding Gyeonggi province, according to a Wednesday announcement, with the facility expected to be ready for service by 2027.

The hyperscale development, which seeks to meet the needs of global cloud service providers and enterprise clients deploying AI and machine learning capabilities, follows the acquisition of two warehouse assets by the Warburg-Wide Creek JV after it was set up in 2023 to focus on investments in “new economy” real estate sectors like logistics, data centres, life sciences and business parks in South Korea.

“South Korea represents one of the most compelling markets for next-generation digital infrastructure investment,” said Warburg Pincus principal Dongkun Cho. “As Asia’s fourth-largest economy and one of the most advanced ICT ecosystems globally, the country continues to experience accelerating demand for data capacity, driven by AI adoption, cloud migration, and the government’s ‘Digital New Deal’ initiative.”

Connecting Korea

Neither the seller nor the precise location and value of the asset were disclosed, with the companies saying only that the data centre will feature a high-efficiency air- and liquid-cooling system capable of supporting high-density AI applications ranging from 60kW to 200kW.

Founded by Jae Woo Choi, formerly of Brookfield’s DCI Data Centers, DC Connects aims to meet fast-growing demand for digital infrastructure in South Korea with this Greater Seoul venture representing its first project. 

“We are proud to break ground on a strategic asset designed from the ground up to meet growing demand from global and local cloud and AI leaders,” Choi said. “With 80MW of capacity, best-in-class cooling and power systems, and built-in flexibility for rapid deployment, this data centre will deliver the reliability, efficiency, and high-density capabilities that tenants need to operate at scale.”

Elsewhere in Asia Pacific, private equity major Warburg Pincus backs Princeton Digital Group, a 1-gigawatt-plus data centre platform with more than 20 assets across Singapore, Japan, India, Indonesia, China and Malaysia. Singapore-based PDG received a preferred equity investment of $1.3 billion from infrastructure-focused fund manager Stonepeak in August, coming on top of $1.2 billion in fresh debt financing announced in May.

Partnership Powers Up

Wide Creek has set up 14 development projects since its 2020 inception, accumulating assets under management in excess of KRW 2.9 trillion ($2 billion).

Investment director Hosung Lee described the Yongin City development as Wide Creek’s second hyperscale data centre project and the only such facility expected to be operational in southern Greater Seoul within the next three years.

“We believe that this investment underscores our proven capabilities across the entire development cycle — from strategic land acquisition and regulatory approvals to contractor selection and construction management,” Lee said. “Looking ahead, we plan to continue investing in the new economy sector through our strong partnership with Warburg Pincus.”

The JV in March announced its acquisition of a 82,000 square metre site in the Gyeonggi provincial city of Anseong for development of a five-storey dry warehouse with a net leasable area of 100,000 square metres (1 million square feet).

The venture had acquired its first site in Gyeonggi’s Yangju in 2023 for development of a last-mile logistics centre with a net leasable area of 144,272 square metres.