SK Ecoplant to supply fuel cells to China’s top data center operator GDS

South Korea’s SK Ecoplant Co. has forged a partnership with China’s top data center developer and operator GDS to jointly enter the Southeast Asian data center market.

As part of the deal, SK said on Monday it will supply fuel cells to GDS to ensure a stale power supply for the data centers built and run by the Chinese company.

Under the agreement, SK Ecoplant will provide eco-friendly power supply solutions, including engineering, procurement and construction (EPS) of fuel cell systems to GDS’ data centers.

“Our strategic partnership with GDS will serve as a cornerstone for us to expand our business overseas, particularly in the Southeast Asian market,” said SK Ecoplant Chief Executive Park Kyung-il.

Established in 2000, Shanghai-headquartered GDS is China’s largest data center development and operation company. Listed on the Nasdaq and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, GDS controls more than 20% of the Chinese data center market.

It counts more than 700 companies as its clients, including China's Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent as well as global firms such as Amazon and Microsoft.

DATA CENTERS, NEW BUSINESS TARGET

SK Ecoplant, formerly known as SK Engineering & Construction Co., has picked data centers as its new business target, even jointly building data centers with its partners.

In April, the company said it joined forces with Singapore’s Digital Edge to build Korea’s largest data center in Incheon, west of Seoul.

SK Ecoplant, the major cash flow of which comes from residential building construction, founded a smart data center division in 2020 to diversify its business.

SK Ecoplant was renamed from SK E&C in May 2021 to change its identity to an eco-friendly company.

It acquired Korea’s largest waste treatment company EMC Holdings Co. for 1 trillion won ($746 million) in 2020 and bought Singapore-based electronic waste disposal and recycling company TES-Envirocorp Pte for 1.2 trillion won in February of this year.

Write to Jong-Pil Park at jp@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.