Data centers in Seoul: 4 projects mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Seoul's sharpest data center fight is in Geumcheon District, where an eight-story data center has been under construction for 11 months about 100 meters from the entrance of a 1,700-household apartment complex in Doksan-dong. About 20 residents, mostly in their 50s and 60s, protest outside the Geumcheon district office every morning except Sunday; on September 21, 2026 the protest reached its 203rd day, the Hankook Ilbo reported. The district has logged about 400 complaints about radiation and noise from the site.

Residents say they did not know what was going up until work began; one said the district first described it as a broadcasting and communications facility. That is how Korean building law classifies data centers, so neighbors get no advance notice of a permit and no required public hearing. Of 112 data centers built or under construction nationwide, only 26 ever held a resident briefing or hearing. Geumcheon council member Ko Young-chan, who lives in the complex, said developers chose the district for its cheap land and that the building brings no tax benefit.

Seoul already has several large data centers. Digital Realty's first Korean building, ICN10, is a 12-megawatt facility in the Sangam Digital Media City district in the northwest, near Equinix's SL1. In Gasan-dong, also in Geumcheon, SK Telecom and the U.S. company Lambda said in August 2024 they would install Nvidia chip clusters in SK Broadband's existing data center by December, at 44 kilowatts of power per rack, about nine times the Korean average.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.