British company Nscale establishes a Korean subsidiary to promote more than two AI data centers

According to Seoul Economic Daily on November 12, British artificial intelligence infrastructure company Nscale is advancing the construction of more than two artificial intelligence data centers in South Korea. The company established its Korean entity, Nscale Service KR, in July 2026, responsible for data center investment, development, operation, and management. Nscale was founded in 2024, independently procures graphics processing units, and operates artificial intelligence data centers, with a corporate value of approximately 35 billion USD, equivalent to about 47 trillion Korean Won, and is pushing for a listing in the United States.

The project has been confirmed to be located in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province. The original plan was to construct a phase one artificial intelligence data center with a scale of 300 megawatts as a consortium, but it has since changed to be built separately by Nscale and other participants. The data center for which Nscale is responsible is currently undergoing licensing and preparing to commence construction. The company is also evaluating the addition of data centers in other regions of South Korea, through methods including new site construction, renovation of existing facilities, and leasing data centers from other companies. An industry insider who requested anonymity stated that Nscale has previously renovated old data centers overseas and installed graphics processing server units to reduce capital burdens, and may propose similar collaborations to South Korean companies.

Additionally, according to the report, the American cloud company CoreWeave is also advancing the construction of data centers in South Korea and appointed Kim Hyun-sik, who previously worked at Microsoft and SoftBank, as the head of its Korean subsidiary last year. The artificial intelligence data center being built by Amazon Web Services and SK Group in Ulsan is scheduled to begin operations next year, and Microsoft has recently started construction on its third data center in Busan. Goldman Sachs analysis indicates that after the Democratic Party's victories in U.S. state and local elections, about 45% of the planned capacity expansions for artificial intelligence data centers in the U.S. may be affected by regulations. CoreWeave stated in a conference call on November 11 that it is expanding its business in Canada, Europe, and Asia to diversify regional regulatory risks. The South Korean government is promoting differentiated electricity pricing by region and a dedicated electricity pricing plan for artificial intelligence data centers.