South Korea's Hanwha Energy is looking to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) data center in Texas.

The company, an energy affiliate of the Hanwha Group, is planning a 200MW AI data center which is estimated to cost two trillion won (~$1.45bn).

Construction of the data center will begin next year, provided Hanwha gets the necessary power systems and water infrastructure. The exact location of the facility has not been shared.

Once completed, the data center will reportedly be capable of operating hundreds of thousands of servers.

Hanwha already operates a 2GW solar plant in Texas and seemingly intends to use at least some of this to power the data center.

The company plans to lease the data center to a 'US tech company' and estimates that the company could generate 10 trillion won (~$7.265bn) in revenue from rental and electricity fees over the next two decades.

An industry official said: “The number of companies that want hundreds of MW AI data centers in the United States is increasing rapidly,” adding, “it is a very tempting business model for Hanwha, which has renewable energy business and power transaction know-how.”

Hanwha has previously invested in green data centers through a 2023 memorandum of understanding with SKS Credit. Between them, the companies created a fund worth $202m.

Northern Texas has been seeing a significant amount of interest from the data center industry of late. Last week, a data center project spanning 770,000 sq ft (71,535 sqm) was approved for land owned by the University of Dallas.

Other developments or expansions in 2024 have been announced by the likes of Stack, CyrusOne, DataNovaX, Powerhouse, and DataBank, among others. Skybox has also kicked off construction work at a 300MW campus in Dallas, Texas.