Gcore expands into Korean market with Incheon data center

Gcore Korea's Country Manager Jung Hyun-yong, left, and Kim Jin-yong, head of pre-sales, speak at a local press event in central Seoul. [GCORE]

Luxembourg-based cloud provider Gcore is making its debut in the competitive Korean cloud market with its first GPU-focused data center opening in Incheon.

The AI cloud service provider will launch the new center on April 15, equipped with 320 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units stacked onto 40 servers.

Each server has 2 terabytes of data storage and contains 112 central processing unit (CPU) cores. They each sport a bandwidth of up to 3.2 terabits per second and have a maximum power output of 12 kilowatts.

The center will start out with 320 Nvidia’s H100s, but the company plans to secure more than 1,000 GPUs by the end of the year —including Nvidia’s upcoming H200 and GB200 GPUs.

“The Incheon center is Gcore’s first data center to open in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Gcore Korea’s head, Jung Hyun-yong, at a press event held in central Seoul on Thursday.

“We chose Korea because of the escalating demand to implement and utilize AI from Korean companies,” said Jung.

The domestic cloud market is already dominated by local and global players, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google and Naver Cloud.

Gcore, on the other hand, will focus on the AI cloud service niche.

“With the establishment of the data center, we aim to generate revenue in Korea that takes up 10 to 15 percent of our total revenue,” Jung said.

Korea ranked sixth in AI development out of 62 countries in 2023, according to the Global AI Index compiled by British media outlet Tortoise Media.

Gcore signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Korean cloud provider NHN Cloud last year to help establish itself domestically and secure new clients for the Incheon center.

The Incheon center will be jointly operated by the two companies.

NHN Cloud said it hopes Gcore can assist the company in entering the European market and help it procure Nvidia's latest GPUs.

Gcore and Nvidia formed a partnership last year, with the chipmaker supplying its A100 and H100 GPUs for the cloud provider's generative AI cluster.

NHN Cloud said it has built the largest GPU farm in Korea, made up of three operating centers — Pangyo and Pyeongchon in Gyeonggi and its latest Gwangju center, which opened last November.

“NHN Cloud considers Gcore to be a partner that could fill in the gaps in platform areas where we may be lacking,” NHN Cloud CEO Kim Dong-hoon said.

“The current market trend revolves around those who can acquire as much GPU inventory as they can and how they can efficiently deliver them to customers,” said Kim.

“Therefore, our current focus is to gather much inventory as possible and quickly collaborate and affordably supply what customers want.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]