This year, we will increase orders for cooling solutions for data centers more than threefold compared to last year. We will use this as a springboard to create compressed growth that is twice as fast as the market.
Lee Jae-sung, head of LG Electronics' Energy Solutions Business Division (vice president), said this on the 8th at a press conference for LG Electronics' heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) business held at LG Science Park in Magok, Gangseo-gu, Seoul. The press conference was attended by Vice President Lee, Oh Se-gi, head of the Energy Solutions Research Institute (vice president), and Bae Jeong-hyun, head of the SAC Division (executive director), where LG Electronics introduced the business strategy of the Energy Solutions Business Division and its artificial intelligence (AI) HVAC solutions for data centers.
To achieve this goal, LG Electronics plans to expand orders for HVAC solutions targeting data centers, including liquid cooling solutions, and widen the scope of ultra-large chillers to include data centers. Additionally, the company aims to establish a local complete value chain from research and development to production, sales, and maintenance, and plans to increase the revenue share of the hardware sector, including building integrated management solutions and maintenance, to 20%. The company also intends to strengthen its business capabilities and portfolio through sequential acquisitions.
The Energy Solutions Business Division was separated from the existing Heating and Air Conditioning (H&A) Division at the end of last year and launched as a separate business division. LG Electronics aims to achieve HVAC sales of 20 trillion won by 2030. According to Global Market Insights, the global HVAC market is expected to grow from $301.6 billion (approximately 415 trillion won) last year to $545.4 billion (approximately 750 trillion won) by 2034.
◇ “We will achieve sales of 1 trillion won in the chiller market within 2 years”
LG Electronics stated that it has an air cooling solution that lowers the internal temperature of data centers using chillers and a liquid cooling solution that directly cools chips using CDU to efficiently manage heat in data centers. In particular, AI data centers, which use multiple central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) for large-scale data processing and high-performance computing, consume more power and generate more heat than traditional data centers, necessitating the need for liquid cooling solutions.
LG Electronics is conducting tests to enhance the performance of cooling solutions by establishing an AI data center-specific testbed that simulates a real data center server environment at its Pyeongtaek chiller plant. Validation of liquid cooling technology to manage AI data centers more effectively with LG Uplus is also underway.
LG Electronics announced its goal to achieve sales of 1 trillion won within 2 years in the chiller market, which is expected to expand to $12 billion globally by 2027. A chiller is a device that cools water. Inside the chiller, refrigerant undergoes a four-step refrigeration cycle of 'compression, condensation, expansion, and evaporation' to cool the water. The demand for chillers is increasing not only in large buildings but also in various fields such as AI, clean rooms, power plants, and smart farms. LG Electronics' inverter scroll chillers are supplied to battery plants in the United States and chemical plants in Korea, achieving a cumulative sales increase of about 30% compared to the same period last year as of May this year.
◇ “Responsible for air conditioning of LG Science Park, the size of 25 soccer fields”
On this day, LG Electronics unveiled for the first time to the domestic media the site where HVAC solutions responsible for heating and cooling at LG Science Park in Magok are applied. LG Science Park is a comprehensive research complex where talents from various fields of LG's research and development (R&D) such as electronics, chemicals, biosciences, software, and telecommunications gather. It consists of 26 research buildings built on a site of over 170,000 square meters (approximately 51,300 pyeong), roughly the size of 25 soccer fields.
Entering the main machine room located in the basement of W5 at LG Science Park, eight chillers of three types were arranged: turbo chillers, screw chillers, and absorption chillers. Opposite the turbo chiller were three absorption chillers, measuring 6.8 meters wide, 4.5 meters deep, and 4 meters high.
In data centers, turbo chillers and absorption chillers that utilize waste heat from district heating, as well as screw chillers that use off-peak power to freeze water, are widely used. The cooled water is delivered through piping to the air handling units (AHUs), where the air is cooled and distributed to each floor, providing heating and cooling for the entire LG Science Park. The cooling water distribution unit (CDU), part of the AI data center cooling solution, was also introduced to the media for the first time. The liquid cooling solution directly cools the chips. It occupies a smaller space while maintaining excellent energy efficiency.