KT commits to 1 GW of AI data centers by 2031, 80% leased

KT plans to supply more than 1 gigawatt of AI data center capacity by 2031, and it has already secured 911 MW of that pipeline across 20 sites. The South Korean carrier disclosed the target on its third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, alongside figures that show why the buildout matters: operating profit fell 6.1 percent year on year to 505.3 billion won.

The company runs 152 MW of data center capacity today. The secured pipeline covers 20 primary sites plus roughly 500 MW across 10 backup sites. About 200 MW of the main pipeline won approval this year, with a further 60 MW expected in the last two months of 2026, executives said.

How will KT finance the buildout?

The gigawatt will not sit entirely on KT's balance sheet. "80% would be the leased and 20% would be our owned data centers," an executive said on the call. Financing, including debt, will be chosen with KT's debt ratio in mind. The carrier is being careful, in other words, about owning bricks it could simply rent.

Geography follows the same logic. Sites in the Seoul metropolitan area with power and permits already secured come first. Projects elsewhere will wait for tenant demand before anyone pours concrete.

The 1 GW figure is not new. Chief executive Park Yoon-young first set it out in July, alongside roughly 18 trillion won of AI-related investment, of which 5 trillion won goes to AI data centers. KT and its main group companies spent 1,599.1 billion won of capital expenditure in the first nine months of the year.

What do the Q3 numbers say?

The quarter itself was mixed, as reported on the call:

• Operating revenue: 6,997.5 billion won, down 1.8 percent
• Operating profit: 505.3 billion won, down 6.1 percent
• Net income: 367.3 billion won, down 17.5 percent
• EBITDA: 1,428.3 billion won, down 5.0 percent

The declines flatter last year's numbers. Excluding a one-time property gain recorded a year earlier, operating profit actually rose 3.5 percent. That is the more honest comparison, and KT was right to make it.

Wireless service revenue fell 3.9 percent to 1,666.8 billion won, after a customer compensation program that ended in the summer. KT Cloud revenue grew 7.7 percent, and enterprise orders rose more than 20 percent in the first nine months. Management expects those orders to start converting into revenue in 2027 — a two-quarter lag between promise and payment that shareholders will need patience for.

Shareholder returns held steady. Management reaffirmed a 9 to 10 percent return-on-equity target for 2028, a minimum 2026 dividend of 2,400 won per share, and a goal of 1 trillion won in cumulative buybacks by 2028. The company completed 250 billion won of buybacks in September.

Does the competition change the picture?

The domestic context is tightening. SK Telecom this week agreed with Nvidia and Rebellions to pair Korean NPUs with Nvidia GPUs, a pairing aimed squarely at the same AI infrastructure demand KT is chasing. Two national carriers, one finite pool of AI tenants.

Kim Bong-gyun, head of KT's enterprise division, framed the expansion as disciplined rather than speculative. The capacity will come "based on actual demand," he said on the call. That phrasing does heavy lifting: it distinguishes KT from operators building ahead of signed contracts.

The verdict sentence, then: KT is trading a shrinking wireless business for rented racks, and it has the sites, the permits and the dividend policy to make the trade credible. Whether 2031's tenants show up in time is the part no earnings call can confirm.