KT, Softbank open joint data center in Gimhae

KT Corp., the country’s largest fixed-line service operator, said it opened its global data center with Japan’s Softbank in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province on Thursday.

The global data center, which opened its doors months after local mobile carrier KT and Softbank announced a joint venture in May, was built on 5,450 square meters of land able to take in 7,000 kilowatts of electricity.

The center, which also offers office space for Japanese firms to directly get involved in server management and operation, contains a system control room, server room, electricity room as well as a support unit office, according to KT officials.

The systems within the center will be tested until the yearend to prepare for official services beginning next year.

It will also use an exclusive line to provide services for its business customers in Japan, making use of a submarine fiber-optic cable run jointly by the two companies from Busan to Kitakyushu, Japan, KT officials said.

The opening of the data center takes place as KT and Softbank announced they would create a joint venture to provide data recovery services as well as cloud computing services to the Japanese firms.

It is expected to enable KT to grab bigger business opportunities in overseas markets, starting in Japan, with the Korea mobile carrier planning to expand its service boundary to cloud infrastructure services and computing platform and solution services.

The joint venture, named kt-SB data service, has been established with initial funding of 37 billion won, and KT will take 51 percent of the new company’s shares, while Softbank takes 49 percent.

Jang Hyeok-gyun, who served as the president of KT Japan, and Softbank’s Yukinori Ishioka will take the chief executive seats of the joint venture.

“We have put all efforts into the construction of the data center for the past six months to deliver fast services,” said Jang. “We’re expecting to combine the service expertise of the two companies to offer customized services for the firms in Japan.”

In the meantime, Microsoft is also looking into setting up a data center in Korea although the scale, total investment sum and establishment date for the next data center in Asia has yet to be fixed.

If Microsoft picks Korea for its next center, it will become the third data center in Asia for the company, beating strong candidate countries such as Japan and China.

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)