Handling thermal management for a 5GW hyperscale AIDC, comparable to 4–5 nuclear reactors in power capacity
“A testament to our cooling technology and reliability”
Cumulative orders expected to reach several KRW trillion by year-end
LG Electronics has secured a long-term supply contract in North America, the largest market for artificial intelligence data centers (AIDCs), for large-scale cooling solutions with a total capacity of 5GW (gigawatts). As the importance of AIDC cooling solutions rises in line with the recent increase in AI performance, LG Electronics plans to use this large contract as a springboard to solidify its position in the expanding cooling solutions market.
On the 5th, LG Electronics announced that its U.S. subsidiary recently signed a definitive long-term supply agreement with Air Control Concepts (AIR), a leading infrastructure platform company in North America, for cooling chillers for AIDCs. Under this contract, LG Electronics will sequentially supply cooling solutions, including high-efficiency chillers, to manage the heat generated by AIDCs with a total capacity of 5GW. The contract partner, AIR, oversees data center design, construction, and procurement in the United States and Canada, and through its data center–specialized subsidiary AMC, it counts major global AIDC operators among its customers.
Recently, as the deployment of high-performance graphic processing units (GPUs) in AIDCs has increased, “thermal management” has emerged as a key issue. According to market research firm Fortune Business Insights, the data center cooling solutions market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 12.6%, from USD 18.8 billion (about KRW 25.3 trillion) in 2025 to USD 54.4 billion (about KRW 73.3 trillion) in 2034. North America accounts for an overwhelming approximate 40% share of this market.
LG Electronics believes that, through this contract, it has secured a stable revenue base in North America, the most important and rapidly growing market within the AIDC cooling solutions sector. In particular, the AIDCs covered by LG Electronics’ 5GW contract are large-scale data centers whose total capacity, in terms of power generation, is comparable to four or five nuclear power plants. An LG Electronics representative stated, “It is significant that we have met the cooling technology and reliability requirements demanded by such large-scale AIDCs.”
There is also potential for additional orders. As the power density and heat generation of global AIDCs have recently increased, a combined approach is attracting attention in which an air-cooling method that circulates cold air to dissipate heat is supplemented with a water-cooling (liquid cooling) solution that directly removes heat using cold water.
In this context, the two companies are discussing ways to expand the scope of supply to include core liquid-cooling equipment such as cooling distribution units (CDUs). Through this, they intend to broaden their portfolio to become a “chip-to-chiller” provider that encompasses both air-cooling and liquid-cooling solutions.
LG Electronics stated that its AIDC cooling solutions orders exceeded KRW 600 billion in the first half of this year (January–June), and that cumulative orders are expected to reach several trillion KRW by year-end. Lee Jae-sung, president of LG Electronics’ Energy Solutions (ES) Business Division, said, “With LG Electronics’ differentiated technologies, including high-efficiency chillers and high-performance liquid-cooling solutions, we will lead the global AIDC cooling market.”
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