The new plant and production capacity
HD Construction Equipment has inaugurated in Gunsan, in North Jeolla Province, an engine plant that cost 116.8 billion won, equivalent to about 87.5 million dollars. The Korea Herald reports this, specifying that the facility was built in two years on a 62,700-square-meter site. The decision responds to growth in demand for high-capacity engines for power generation, which the company says is driven by artificial intelligence data centers.
The plant is sized to produce 1,250 engines for power generation each year, with outputs ranging from 1 to 3 megawatts. The same line adds 120 tank engines and an annual capacity of 1,460 megawatt-hours of battery packs, an amount the company equates to powering about 9,400 electric buses. It is therefore a mixed facility, not dedicated exclusively to data centers.
The roadmap for the new engines
The industrial plan calls for the start of mass production of the 37-liter DX37 engine in the first half of 2027. It will be followed by the 77-liter, 3-megawatt DX77 in 2028 and the 50-liter, 2-megawatt DX50 in 2029. At the opening ceremony, the company presented the DX37 and announced a new name for its engine division, Power Solutions, with the slogan "Powering the Next".
The investment is part of a commercial strategy already under way: in early October, HD Construction Equipment secured a contract worth about 390 billion won to supply engine components for gas generators to U.S. energy infrastructure supplier Enchanted Rock, with deliveries scheduled between 2027 and 2028. The new plant, therefore, is not based on merely hypothetical demand but stands alongside an already announced order.
Beyond data centers and revenue targets
Production is not limited to generation for data centers: the plant will also make tank engines and battery packs for commercial vehicles, construction machinery and industrial applications. On the quality front, the facility has automated assembly robots, autonomous mobile robots, defect detection systems and centralized production monitoring.
The stated goal is to nearly double the annual revenue of the engine business, from 1.3 trillion won in 2025 to 2.5 trillion won by 2030. CEO Moon Jae-young said the company will develop future technologies in response to new energy demand and will aim to grow together with the local community. It remains to be verified on the ground whether the volumes projected for 2027-2029 will be achieved and how data center demand will translate into actual orders.
