LG Electronics to invest $110 mil. for chiller facilities in US, Korea

LG Electronics will invest 150 billion won ($110 million) to set up a new U.S. chiller factory and expand production lines in Korea to meet rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) data center cooling systems, the company said Thursday. The plant will be established in Windsor, Virginia, and is scheduled to begin production in the first half of 2027. It will have 32,000 square meters of floor space on a 170,000-square-meter site and manufacture air-cooled chillers primarily for AI data centers. LG Electronics will also add air-cooled chiller production lines and upgrade equipment at its factories in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, by the end of this year. A single-conveyor system spanning all manufacturing stages will improve productivity and enable multiple lines to operate simultaneously. North America hosts more than half of the world's AI data centers. According to market tracker Omdia, global data center power requirements are forecast to rise from 226 gigawatts this year to 420 gigawatts in 2030, with 60 percent concentrated in North A