Hanwha Asset Management announced on the 6th that it held a "data center investment seminar" for investors from more than 30 institutions in Korea at The Plaza Hotel Diamond Hall on the 5th.
Kim Jong-ho, CEO of Hanwha Asset Management, said, "We have prepared this seminar to share insights to help make investment decisions based on the research competitiveness of Hanwha Asset Management's alternative investment sector," adding, "We will accurately read the structural changes and long-term directions of the market and present strategies and solutions that match them."
The seminar was held under the theme of 'Domestic Data Center Market Status and Investment Strategy'. Hanwha Management presented the growth outlook of the domestic data center market amid structural demand growth such as the spread of Generative AI and provided insights on key standards to be reviewed from a practical perspective such as location, power, license, lease, and technology specifications. The main criteria for determining investment are ▲ accessibility to the metropolitan area ▲ whether to secure a high-level loan agreement that can provide PF (project financing) loans ▲ whether to hire the latest SPEC.
According to Hanwha Management, the data center is an infrastructure essential for the development of high-tech industries in the future. Continuous and stable growth is expected as demand for data storage and processing is accompanied by technological development in any direction such as semiconductors, Generative AI, cloud (SaaS/PaaS), IoT, and metaverse.
In particular, the market is expected to revitalize in Korea based on the fact that the scarcity of sites in the Seoul metropolitan area has increased rapidly since the enforcement of the Special Act on Distributed Energy, which has accelerated buyers' investment decisions, and that the expansion of liquidity based on government policies such as the National Growth Fund is expected to begin in earnest. According to the Korea Data Center Association, the size of the domestic data center market is expected to grow at an annual average of 13.4% (CAGR) from 2025 to 2028.
Park Dong-hyuk, head of Hanwha Asset Management's infrastructure platform investment group, stressed the importance of data centers, saying, "Just as pickles were essential regardless of mining methods in the 'Goldrush' era, data centers are key infrastructure across high-tech technologies." "In particular, in Korea, despite having a large number of high-tech IT companies, last year's data center supply was only half of the OECD average," he said. "If liquidity is released and supply is activated this year, there will be many investment opportunities."
Meanwhile, Hanwha Asset Management is focusing on providing alternative investment solutions tailored to investors this year. Hwang Seung-hwan, head of Hanwha Asset Management's real investment team, said, "We are considering participation in flagship funds by global managers with excellent track records and collaboration with sector-specific managers such as data centers, logistics, and multi-family to develop products that match investors' strategies. We will support rapid investment execution and diversified investment by creating blind funds."
