Data center rollout will dramatically increase South Korea's electricity consumption. Amid the global AI boom, South Korea's data center power capacity is set to triple by 2030, the choice of power generation source carries direct implications for emissions and climate goals. Fossil fuels supplied 56.3% of South Korea's electricity in 2025. As Korea builds out its data center infrastructure, how its own power supply evolves will shape its ability to meet its climate commitments.
South Korea's exposure to energy security risk, meanwhile, is rising. Fossil fuels made up 80% of South Korea's total energy supply in 2024 (including electricity, transport, heating, etc.), and South Korea imports virtually all of them. The Iran-related crisis has severely disrupted these oil and gas imports, with 70% of Korea's crude oil imports and 20% of its LNG passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The South Korean government is steering toward a cleaner energy mix. On May 19, 2026, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment (MCEE) announced the 1st Basic Plan for Renewable Energy, setting a target for renewables to account for at least 30% of power generation by 2035, to address energy security concerns and support the development of advanced industries, including data centers.
Energy supply-side companies and industry associations are seeking to shape the country's energy future. South Korea's utilities, gas companies, and cross-sector industry associations are pushing for heavier reliance on LNG and an extended role for nuclear, while arguing that renewable build-out is conditional on grid expansion without expressing clear support for a renewables-led mix.
Yet Korea's largest electricity-consuming companies — Samsung Electronics, SK Inc., SK Telecom, SK Hynix, Naver Corporation, and Kakao — have not strongly advocated for a renewables-led mix in the debate over what will power their data center infrastructure, despite commitments such as RE100 to procure renewable energy, net zero, and other climate goals. Instead, some have expressed support for the expansion of LNG and nuclear.
InfluenceMap analysis finds that supply-side actors advocating for fossil gas and nuclear power are more active in the debate over energy supply for South Korea's data centers, while demand-side companies with a direct stake in the outcome engage little or only in general terms. As a result, actors advocating for fossil gas and nuclear power are shaping the policy debate more actively and with positions less aligned with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pathways, despite the scale of renewable deployment needed to meet the government's long-term energy targets.
InfluenceMap analysis identifies Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS), Doosan Enerbility, and the cross-sector industry associations—Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI)—as the most active voices shaping public discussion on energy supply for South Korea's data centers. They make a similar argument: meet rising AI-driven electricity demand with fossil gas and nuclear, while questioning the role of renewables.
KOGAS, Doosan Enerbility, and SK Innovation E&S (the energy subsidiary of SK Inc., one of the demand-side companies discussed in the next section) each publicly supported a continued role for fossil gas in powering data centers without placing clear conditions on carbon capture or methane abatement or specifying timelines aligned with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidance. 1
FKI took a similar position on using fossil gas to power data centers and characterized "excessive expansion of renewables" as a risk to energy security while positioning nuclear as the alternative. This framing is difficult to reconcile with IPCC-aligned pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, which advises that nuclear will play a supplementary role in a renewables-focused energy mix and should be accompanied by reductions in fossil fuel use.
KEPCO, South Korea's state-owned utility, took a more ambivalent position. It expressed support for nuclear and small modular reactors (SMRs) as a response to AI-driven demand growth. While it made a vague call for “renewable energy expansion,” it emphasized grid stability concerns.
KCCI, Korea's largest cross-sector industry association, has reinforced this framing by raising concerns over the economic and technical feasibility of a renewables-dominated power mix and casting doubt on the role renewables can play in meeting rising data center demand.
Despite the substantial impact that energy consumption from data centers could have on demand-side companies' business models and climate commitments, South Korea's largest electricity-consuming companies have not engaged actively in support of a renewables-led energy mix for data centers. Demand-side companies accounted for only around 14% of InfluenceMap's tracked engagement on energy supply for data centers, and engagement patterns varied among them.
Naver Corporation has limited engagement on energy supply for data centers, despite its scale and their direct involvement in the data center market. Naver expressed broad support for renewable energy without specifying the pace or scale of deployment or the policy reforms required to deliver it. Kakao, which operates major data center infrastructure and has made climate commitments, has not publicly engaged on energy supply for data centers, according to InfluenceMap's tracking.
Despite its prominence in Korea’s market, Samsung Electronics has engaged only twice on energy supply for data centers, reflecting limited engagement. In 2024, it expressed broad support for carbon-free energy without specifying the pace or scale of deployment. InfluenceMap's tracking, however, picked up recent statement by a senior Samsung Electronics executive in support of LNG to power the government's data center mega project: at a government-convened meeting on domestic data center projects attended by the president and government ministers, it called for a continued role for LNG combined heat and power alongside an extended role for nuclear power to “complement the intermittency of renewable energy.” On LNG use, however, it did not specify conditions aligned with IPCC guidance or emissions abatement requirements.
SK Inc., which operates one of South Korea's largest data center development pipelines shows a similarly mixed record. In October 2025, at a gathering of Asia-Pacific energy companies, a senior SK Inc. representative supported a continued role for LNG in powering data centers, without specifying IPCC-aligned conditions or emissions abatement requirements. SK Inc. also supported an extended role for nuclear power in response to AI-driven electricity demand.
Two of SK Inc.'s subsidiaries have engaged on data center energy without taking clear positions on the energy mix. SK Telecom, which holds an RE100 commitment, has urged the government to recognize that electricity demand is likely to exceed current projections, but it has not taken a position on which energy sources should be used to meet that additional demand. SK Hynix has focused its engagement on improving energy efficiency in data center operations, without addressing the question of which energy sources should meet rising demand. While the data center energy discussion will have a substantial impact on SK Inc. and its subsidiaries, their engagement — at both the parent and subsidiary level — ranges from absent on the energy mix question to advocating for an LNG-heavy energy mix.
The graphic above maps each tracked entity's engagement on energy supply for data centers between 2023 and 2026. The horizontal axis shows alignment with IPCC-recommended pathways, with positions further to the right indicating greater alignment. The vertical axis shows the intensity of engagement on the topic. Supply-side companies engage more intensively, and their positions sit further to the left, indicating lower alignment with IPCC pathways than demand-side companies. No tracked company or industry group scores as aligned, indicating little positive engagement from either group.
South Korea's government is steering toward an expansion of clean energy to address growing concerns around energy security and AI-driven energy demand. In addition to the 1st Basic Plan for Renewable Energy, the government maintained ambition in the recently passed Special Act on the Promotion of the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Industry by rejecting a proposal to extend power purchase agreements (PPAs) — a mechanism originally limited to renewable energy operators — to include LNG for data center power supply. Following the bill's passage, MCEE reaffirmed its commitment to "accelerate the major energy transition centered on renewable energy".
Yet despite this direction and mounting energy security and affordability crises, major supply-side incumbents continue to advocate for LNG and nuclear expansion as the primary pathway for powering data centers—even as the marginal cost of LNG-based electricity in South Korea has doubled since the Iran conflict began in late February 2026. Because energy infrastructure operates for decades, LNG investments made now would lock South Korea into prolonged exposure to fuel-price volatility and import dependence, even as data center capacity is projected to triple by 2030.
For demand-side companies operating data centers in South Korea, the consequences of this limited engagement extend beyond energy costs. Without active demand-side support for a renewables-led mix, supply-side companies dominate the industry perspective on South Korea's energy future. Locking in an LNG-heavy energy infrastructure would place South Korea on a pathway incompatible with its 2050 carbon neutrality commitment and IPCC pathways — undermining the climate commitments that many of these companies have made.
As South Korea advances its AI ambitions, the absence of strong demand-side advocacy for a renewables-led mix risks allowing LNG and nuclear advocates to set the terms of an energy future that runs counter to both the government's direction and South Korea's climate goals.
1) The IPCC’s 1.5°C-aligned guidance on fossil gas states that its role in the energy system will diminish by 20–60% by 2050, with the use of gas peaking in 2035 (IPCC AR6 WGIII, April 2022, Chapter 6, Section 6.7.4). It also highlights that for fossil gas to maintain a role in electricity generation, carbon capture will be key.
