(Feb 27): Hyundai Motor Co will invest nine trillion won (US$6.3 billion) to build an artificial intelligence data centre, robot factory and hydrogen plant in South Korea, as the automaker accelerates its push into into new technologies.
The largest part of the investment will be a 5.8 trillion won AI data centre equipped with 50,000 GPUs to support autonomous vehicle development and robot learning, according to a statement from South Korea’s land ministry on Friday.
A further one trillion won has been allocated to open a water electrolysis facility capable of producing 80 tonnes of green hydrogen a day, while 1.3 trillion won will be spent on a solar plant to power the AI and hydrogen initiatives.
The facilities will be built in the Saemangeum area, which is about 270 kilometres (168 miles) southwest of Seoul.
The project also calls for launching Hyundai’s first robot factory in South Korea, totalling 400 billion won, designed to mass produce wearable robots and other industrial and logistics models, and eventually to foster a robot parts cluster in the region.
Hyundai signed an investment agreement with seven government agencies on Friday, after clinching a partnership in October with Nvidia Corp to develop a national physical AI cluster using the chipmaker’s Blackwell accelerators.
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The announcement comes as Hyundai ramps up investment in new growth fields, including AI, robotics and self-driving technology, amid mounting pressure on its core auto business from US tariffs, competition from Chinese automakers, and a slowing transition to electric vehicles in key markets like North America.
The company’s Boston Dynamics Inc unit showcased the production-ready version of its Atlas humanoid robot at last month’s CES, which will be made in the US.
The large-scale investment also fits with with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s call to create more jobs and boost regional economies away from Seoul and other major cities. The plan is expected to create 71,000 new jobs and attract global partner companies and their talent, according to the land ministry.
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“The logistics and industrial robots to be mass-produced at this factory will be connected to the AI data centre for constant learning,” Lee said at a ceremony for the investment agreement. “This area will be reborn as a future city where everyone conveniently uses robots in their daily lives.”
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