'Kakao Data Center Ansan' Completion Ceremony
Hyperscale Facility with 120,000 Servers
Kakao has completed construction of its first proprietary data center, 'Kakao Data Center Ansan,' and is preparing for full-scale operation. This comes about a year after suffering service disruptions due to a fire at a data center in October last year.
On the 26th, Kakao held a completion ceremony at the Kakao Data Center Ansan site located on Hanyang University ERICA campus. About 100 people attended the ceremony, including key local government and community figures such as Lee Ki-jung, President of Hanyang University; Lee Min-geun, Mayor of Ansan; and Lee Jin-boon, Vice Chairman of the Ansan City Council.
Breaking ground in 2021, Kakao Data Center Ansan is Kakao's first self-owned data center. With a total floor area of 47,378㎡, it is a massive data center capable of operating 120,000 servers. The amount of data it can store reaches 6 exabytes (EB). One EB equals 1 billion gigabytes (GB). Kakao plans to begin full-scale operation in the first quarter of next year after installing operating systems and conducting stabilization tests.
Kakao Data Center Ansan is equipped with systems to prepare for natural disasters and emergencies such as fire, earthquakes, and floods. It features a four-stage fire response system to handle large-scale fires, seismic design, and redundancy in power, cooling, and communication to prepare for power outages. Strong disaster-resistant designs have been applied to withstand natural disasters such as floods, tsunamis, typhoons, and earthquakes.
To build an eco-friendly data center, renewable energy infrastructure, high-efficiency energy equipment, rainwater, recycled water, waste heat recycling systems, and various energy-saving technologies utilizing natural conditions have been applied. Recognized for its use of energy efficiency technologies and energy-saving architectural design, it is expected to receive the highest grade 1 in building energy efficiency and the top rating in green building certification.
Kakao Data Center Ansan has adopted a model where businesses, the local community, and schools can grow together. During construction, priority was given to local companies for orders, sponsorship was provided for the Ansan Science Valley Science Festival, and donations were made to the Hanyang University ERICA campus development fund along with the provision of industry-academia-research spaces. Going forward, Kakao plans to collaborate with Hanyang University and Ansan City to contribute to industry-academia cooperation and regional economic revitalization through data center tours and support for youth IT education programs.
Kakao plans to continuously expand its data centers. It will maintain and expand existing leased data centers to ensure flawless response to any situation and make thorough efforts in data center operations.
In his welcoming remarks at the completion ceremony, Hong Eun-taek, CEO of Kakao, said, "The Kakao Data Center, which perfectly responds to any disaster or accident, will be an important cornerstone of Kakao's commitment and promise to protect everyone's everyday life with stable services."
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