LG Electronics adds chiller plants in US and Korea for AI cooling

LG Electronics announced Oct. 2 that it will spend 150 billion won ($110 million) to expand industrial chiller production across South Korea and the United States, targeting thermal bottlenecks in artificial intelligence data centers.

The capital expenditure addresses rising cooling requirements in high-density computing clusters. Data centers worldwide are projected to consume 420 gigawatts of power by 2030, with North America accounting for roughly 60% of that total, according to research firm Omdia.

Chillers produce high volumes of chilled water circulated through heat exchangers to dissipate heat from computing hardware. Modern artificial intelligence server racks generate thermal densities that exceed conventional air conditioning limits, turning industrial chillers into critical utility equipment.

LG Electronics plans to build an air-cooled chiller manufacturing plant in Windsor, Virginia. The facility will sit on a 170,000-square-meter site and provide 32,000 square meters of gross floor area.

The Virginia site will manufacture air-cooled chillers designed specifically for data centers. Siting assembly lines in Virginia places manufacturing near Northern Virginia, the largest concentration of hyperscale data centers in North America.

LG Electronics aims to start commercial production at the Windsor facility in the first half of 2027. Localizing manufacturing cuts logistics lead times for North American operators and complies with domestic supply preferences.

In South Korea, LG Electronics is expanding and upgrading assembly lines at its factories in Pyeongtaek and Changwon. The two plants manufacture both domestic units and export-grade industrial heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment.

The domestic upgrades introduce a single-conveyor flow-line manufacturing setup. This continuous process handles chiller assembly from component feeding to final inspection on one line, eliminating transfer delays between discrete assembly stations.

LG Electronics expects to complete the Korean line installations by the end of 2026. Once complete, both Pyeongtaek and Changwon will operate multiple assembly lines concurrently to meet delivery schedules.

Air-cooled chillers dissipate absorbed heat directly into outdoor air through condenser coils rather than relying on evaporative cooling towers. This closed architecture eliminates external water consumption, a significant operational factor for operators facing municipal water permits.

Beyond primary chillers, LG Electronics is marketing what it terms a chip-to-chiller thermal architecture. The portfolio links building-level chillers to intermediate coolant distribution units and direct-to-chip cold plates that touch processor surfaces.

Coolant distribution units pump liquid coolant through server racks, while cold plates absorb heat directly from high-thermal-design-power silicon. Chillers then reject that accumulated heat outside the building envelope.

LG Electronics combines this cooling hardware with related units within the broader LG corporate group. Under this structure, LG Energy Solution supplies lithium-ion battery energy storage systems for backup power, while LG CNS provides data center engineering, procurement and operational services.

The conglomerate deployed this cross-affiliate package at a hyperscale artificial intelligence data center under development by Sinar Mas Group in Jakarta, Indonesia. In that project, LG provided integrated cooling, energy storage and design oversight under a single commercial offering.

LG Electronics faces established competitors in North American chiller procurement, including Trane Technologies, Carrier Global and Johnson Controls International. Those domestic incumbents hold deep service networks across American utility and commercial real estate channels.

Supplying cooling hardware to artificial intelligence facilities requires rigorous reliability certifications and long continuous run times under peak loads. Facility operators typically require redundant pumping systems and uninterrupted operation during ambient temperature spikes.

LG Electronics will deploy proprietary oil-free magnetic bearing compressors within its chiller systems. These compressors eliminate mechanical friction, reducing maintenance intervals and improving seasonal power efficiency ratios for large installations.

The shift toward accelerated computing silicon has increased average rack power densities from 10 kilowatts toward 40 to 100 kilowatts per cabinet. Traditional raised-floor air systems cannot transfer heat away from server nodes at those thermal concentrations without liquid-assist loops.

Air-cooled chillers remain the primary external heat rejection loop even when servers use direct liquid cooling inside the rack. The internal coolant loop transfers thermal energy to a secondary heat exchanger, which depends on chiller fluid to exhaust heat outdoors.

The company did not disclose the capital expenditure split between the Windsor plant and the Korean lines, nor did it release specific unit production volume targets for either geography. Regulatory disclosure filings were not required on the Korea Exchange because the 150 billion won outlay fell below mandatory equity reporting thresholds.

The Korean production lines in Pyeongtaek and Changwon will enter full multi-line commercial operation by Dec. 31, 2026, while the Windsor plant in Virginia is scheduled to begin deliveries during the first half of 2027.