HD Construction Equipment opens $87 mil. plant to tap AI data center demand

HD Construction Equipment opened a new engine and battery pack plant in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, Wednesday, as it seeks to tap growing demand for high-output power-generation engines for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The company held an opening ceremony at its Gunsan campus in the Gunsan National Industrial Complex, attended by HD Hyundai Vice Chairman Cho Young-cheul, HD Construction Equipment CEO Moon Jae-young, provincial officials, lawmakers and business partners, among about 200 people. The new plant was built over about two years at a cost of 116.8 billion won ($87.38 million), on a 62,700-square-meter site within the campus. It features automated production systems, including assembly robots, autonomous mobile robots and equipment that detects quality defects before products leave the line, as well as an integrated control tower for overseeing operations. The facility has an annual production capacity of 1,250 power-generation engines at 1 to 3 megawatts electric (MWe), 120 military engines for tanks and battery packs totaling up to 1,460 megawatt-hours, which