LG chairman widens AI data center partnerships with Big Tech firms

LG Group is expanding its partnerships with Big Tech companies in artificial intelligence (AI) data center infrastructure, with Chairman Koo Kwang-mo’s engagement with leaders of Microsoft and Nvidia leading to collaboration opportunities in areas including cooling systems, batteries and robotics components.

LG Electronics said in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday that Koo met Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella at the latter's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on Monday (local time), and discussed strategic collaboration in AI data center infrastructure, AI transformation and physical AI.

In AI data center infrastructure, the two sides will explore business opportunities for LG to supply cooling, power and infrastructure solutions in support of Microsoft’s global data center expansion.

In the short term, the two sides will concentrate on supplying LG Electronics’ high-capacity cooling solutions for Microsoft’s AI data center projects at key strategic locations, while expanding their collaboration over the medium to long term to prefabricated data centers.

Prefabricated data centers are factory-built, pretested modular data center systems aimed at rapid deployment and scalable capacity. They are known to cut setup time by nearly half, significantly shortening overall construction schedules, while standardized production can also lower capital expenditures.

The two sides will also accelerate partnership on AI transformation. LG Electronics said it plans to transform its work environment for the entire knowledge workforce globally with Microsoft’s AI and cloud platforms, including Microsoft 365 E7: The Frontier Suite.

In physical AI, LG plans to use Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure to accelerate AI model development and training for manufacturing, logistics and mobility. The companies will also build a “Data Flywheel” that continuously feeds manufacturing data into AI model training to strengthen LG’s physical AI capabilities.

The partnership came after the two sides discussed cooperation at a technology showcase held at Microsoft headquarters last December. Since then, they have worked to outline specific areas of collaboration through executive-level engagement and working-level discussions.

LG Group’s collaboration with Nvidia is also taking shape.

LG Electronics and LG Energy Solution each said Tuesday that their high-capacity coolant distribution unit (CDU) and battery energy storage system (BESS), respectively, received Nvidia’s DSX Ready approval.

Nvidia refers to AI data centers as AI Factories and offers its DSX platform, which integrates computing, networking, power and cooling infrastructure for such facilities. The company grants DSX Ready approval to products that meet the platform’s relevant requirements, and CDUs are required to provide cooling capacity of at least 2.3 megawatts to qualify as DSX Ready CDUs.

A CDU is one of the key components of a liquid cooling system, circulating coolant through heat-generating equipment such as servers and graphics processing units while controlling its temperature and pressure to prevent overheating.

The approved product is LG Electronics’ 2.5-megawatt CDU, which is emerging as a benchmark for high-capacity CDUs for the latest AI server racks.

The product adopts an in-row configuration, which groups multiple racks into rows and cools them with a single high-capacity CDU, allowing it to manage heat from high-density AI data centers more effectively than conventional in-rack configurations that use separate low-capacity CDUs for each rack.

LG Electronics said its 600-kilowatt and 1-megawatt CDU products met Nvidia’s standards in July and earlier this month, respectively. With the 2.5-megawatt model meeting additional requirements to receive DSX Ready approval, the company said it has demonstrated top-tier technological capabilities in the global liquid cooling market.

“With the DSX Ready approval, we will begin supplying more reliable and efficient cooling solutions to global Big Tech companies on a full scale and strengthen our position in the next-generation liquid cooling market,” said Lee Jae-sung, president of LG Electronics’ Eco Solution division.

LG Energy Solution was selected as one of three BESS partners for the DSX Ready program. Its approved product, JF2 AC Link, is based on high-capacity lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries and offers enhanced safety, energy efficiency and a long lifespan. Its modular design can also shorten construction time.

The system can be expanded quickly and flexibly as data centers grow in scale, allowing operators to respond to rapidly increasing power demand.

LG Energy Solution plans to use its DSX Ready approval as momentum for its expansion in the fast-growing AI data center ESS market in North America. The company currently operates five ESS production sites in the region, locally producing cells, packs links and all other products across its ESS value chain. It plans to secure more than 50 gigawatt-hours of ESS production capacity in North America by the end of this year.

“The inclusion demonstrates the competitiveness of LG Energy Solution’s products optimized for AI data centers,” LG Energy Solution Senior Vice President Kang Chang-beom said. “We will continue to expand our AI infrastructure business and accelerate its growth based on our differentiated local production capabilities and technological leadership.”

The Nvidia approvals followed multiple engagements between Koo and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. In the latest, Koo visited Nvidia’s headquarters in California last month, where the two sides agreed to accelerate their collaboration in key future industries including robotics, AI Factories and mobility.