[Conference Call] LG Uplus Secures Customers for All Four Paju AIDC Buildings... "Accelerating Expansion to Respond on Time"

Accommodates the Latest GPUs, Including Vera Rubin

CAPEX Expected to Rise Next Year... Shareholder Returns to Be Maintained

Only of the Three Mobile Carriers to Record a Net Increase in Mobile Subscription Lines in Q3

LG Uplus said it has secured customer demand for all four buildings of its 200-megawatt (MW)-class artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) in Paju, Gyeonggi Province.

LG Uplus headquarters. Provided by LG Uplus.

Ahn Hyung-gyun, head of LG Uplus' Enterprise AI Business Group, said during a conference call on November 4, "With customer demand confirmed not only for Buildings 2 and 3 but also for Building 4, we are moving ahead in earnest with the design and construction of the next facilities." He added, "We have already secured a customer for Building 1, which is being built with a capacity of 50 MW, and it is equipped with a liquid-cooling environment capable of accommodating the latest graphics processing units (GPUs), including Vera Rubin."

The AIDC business combines the construction of its own data centers with the DBO (design, build, and operate) model. To this end, LG Uplus is pursuing two to three DBO projects with external partners, including asset managers. Ahn said, "By combining our own data centers with the DBO model, we will improve investment efficiency while increasing the speed of supply and our ability to execute so that we can respond promptly to rising customer demand."

LG Uplus plans to bring forward capacity expansions to strengthen its business competitiveness in response to AIDC demand. Yeo Myeong-hee, chief financial officer (CFO) of LG Uplus, said, "We are accelerating capacity expansions at AIDCs, which account for a large share of our investments, on the back of solid customer demand." She added, "The Paju AIDC is structured to secure a certain level of capital efficiency through long-term contracts of 10 to 15 years, so proactively expanding infrastructure to meet customer demand in a timely manner is also in line with enhancing shareholder value."

As investment in AI infrastructure expands across domestic industries, LG Uplus' capital expenditures (CAPEX) are expected to increase next year. Yeo said, "This year, CAPEX is expected to rise somewhat from the previous year as some investments deferred from last year and AI-related network investments are carried out." She added, "The amount could vary depending on the pace and scale of the Paju AIDC expansion, but next year's CAPEX will be higher."

She added, "Nevertheless, we plan to maintain the basic framework of our existing shareholder return policy. We will pay dividends of at least 40% of separate net income, excluding one-off gains, and increase dividends per share over the medium to long term."

Meanwhile, LG Uplus said it was the only one of the country's three mobile carriers to record a net increase in mobile subscription lines in the third quarter of this year. LG Uplus had 32.143 million mobile subscription lines in the third quarter, up 6.2% from the same period a year earlier. Of these, 23.052 million were mobile network operator (MNO) lines and 9.09 million were mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) lines, up 8.7% and 0.4%, respectively. Kang Jin-wook, head of LG Uplus' Mobile and Digital Business Group, said, "On a combined MNO and MVNO basis, we were the only one of the three telecom carriers to achieve a net increase in subscription lines in the third quarter."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.