Samsung, Flakt to invest W240b in Gwangju AI cooling factory

Samsung Electronics and Flakt Group plan to invest 240 billion won ($170 million) in Gwangju to build a factory producing cooling equipment for AI data centers. The project is expected to create more than 300 jobs.

The investment comes alongside the 800 trillion won Honam semiconductor complex, broadening Gwangju's manufacturing base into AI data center cooling and HVAC systems for large buildings — a combination city officials say could generate significant industrial synergies.

The Gwangju metropolitan government signed an investment agreement with Samsung Electronics and Flakt Group on Wednesday at the Gwangju Government Complex business room for the construction of a new factory.

The plant will be built on a roughly 33,000-square-meter vacant lot within Samsung Electronics' Gwangju Campus 3, located in the Cheomdan Science National Industrial Complex in Buk-gu's Oryong-dong.

The investment period runs from this year through 2028, with total investment set at 240 billion won and a hiring plan of more than 300 people. The factory is targeting a launch in the first half of 2028.

The new plant's core products will be cooling equipment for AI data centers and HVAC systems for large buildings. The move aims to bring the cooling and air-conditioning industry — increasingly critical as AI computing demand surges and data center heat management grows in importance — into Gwangju as a new pillar of its manufacturing sector.

Samsung Electronics completed its acquisition of Flakt Group, Europe's largest HVAC company, in November last year.

Flakt has supplied central air-conditioning and precision cooling solutions to data centers, large commercial facilities and hospitals. Samsung is pursuing a strategy of expanding its B2B HVAC business by combining Flakt's central air-conditioning technology with its existing residential and commercial air-conditioning operations.

The Gwangju metropolitan government expects the new factory, once operational, to generate more than 300 new jobs as well as increased parts orders tied to key local suppliers.

The city sees an opportunity for Gwangju's existing home-appliance supplier ecosystem — built around the Samsung Electronics Gwangju campus and spanning mold-making, injection molding, electronic components, motors and control systems — to expand into the higher-value-added HVAC sector.

Beyond the 240 billion won construction investment, a key challenge will be how much of the recurring demand generated after the factory opens — parts procurement, maintenance and logistics — flows to local businesses.

Construction had been scheduled to begin in September but slowed after a narrow-mouthed frog, a class-2 endangered species, was discovered on the planned factory site.

Samsung Electronics has submitted a plan to the Yeongsan River Basin Environmental Office to create an alternative habitat for relocating the frogs.