The construction of a hyperscale data center in Gurae-dong, Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do is now moving forward in earnest.DL E&C officially announced the signing of the construction contract, marking the formal kickoff of a project that had been delayed for years. Although the project received building permits in 2021, it was stalled for four years due to opposition from local residents.

According to industry sources on May 14, DL E&C disclosed on May 12 that it won the construction contract for the ‘ICN11 Data Center’ at 6877-9 Gurae-dong, Gimpo-si, valued at 361.65 billion KRW (approximately 280 million USD). The construction period is set for 29 months, from May 25, 2025, to October 24, 2027.

The project client is Digital Seoul 2 LLC, a domestic subsidiary established in 2021 by Digital Realty Trust, a leading global data center operator, specifically for the ICN11 project.

The data center will be built on a 19,686㎡ (about 211,800 sq ft) site and will have:

· 4 underground floors

· 8 above-ground floors

The total gross floor area will be approximately 95,490㎡ (about 1,028,000 sq ft).

With an electrical capacity of 80MW, including 64MW dedicated to IT equipment, the facility qualifies as hyperscale, capable of hosting at least 100,000 servers.

Through ICN11, Digital Realty aims to provide dedicated hyperscale space to global cloud service providers (CSPs) including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, while also offering co-location (server space rental) services to domestic and international IT companies.

In September 2022, Digital Realty announced plans to connect ICN11 with its ‘Digital Seoul 1 (ICN10)’ facility in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul via optical fiber. This network will serve more than 1,500 global companies, 1,200 network providers, and 1,100 cloud and IT firms worldwide.

Despite receiving building permits from Gimpo-si in June 2021, the project was delayed when the city rejected the construction commencement report in March 2024 due to opposition from residents near the Gimpo Hangang New Town development.

Residents raised concerns over electromagnetic radiation, noise pollution, heat island effects, and damage to local scenery. In particular, they opposed the installation of 154kV extra-high voltage power lines required to supply electricity to the data center, citing potential health and environmental risks.

Digital Realty filed an administrative appeal against Gimpo-si’s rejection. On October 21, 2024, the Gyeonggi Provincial Administrative Appeals Commission ruled the rejection unlawful. Following this ruling, Gimpo-si formally accepted the construction commencement report on November 17, 2024. A city official explained, “We were legally obliged to comply with the administrative appeal ruling, so acceptance was inevitable.”

With the administrative dispute resolved and DL E&C having signed the construction contract, the project is now entering full-scale development.

An industry insider commented, “As the importance of internet and AI-based services continues to grow, the establishment of a hyperscale data center in the Seoul metropolitan area is highly significant as a national effort to expand core digital infrastructure.”

This article was originally published by Corebeat on May 14, 2025.