The context and the announcement
At a meeting held on November 5 at the Maison Glad hotel in Jeju, Tilon CEO Choi Baek-jun presented the DstationX virtualized computing solution together with the company's artificial intelligence services, reiterating the choice to operate on the island even though its headquarters are in Seoul and his hometown is not Jeju. According to the source, the executive justified the decision by the presence of skilled personnel, a strong sense of belonging among employees and high productivity.
During the event, Kstory.ai was presented, a service developed in Jeju that generates illustrated books from a story described by the user via prompt. The source indicates that the product is attracting interest both in South Korea and in Japan.
The proposal for a data center aimed at overseas markets
The central part of the presentation was dedicated to the data center project that Tilon has supported for years for Jeju. The argument rests on two conditions that, according to Choi, the island possesses: availability of renewable energy, particularly wind and solar, and abundant, clean water resources needed to cool high-performance GPU servers. The executive observed that while the Seoul metropolitan area is affected by electricity grid overloads, Jeju records a growing share of renewable energy left unused for lack of consumers, a phenomenon described as forced curtailment of generation.
Hence the thesis of connecting otherwise wasted energy to a high-consumption industry such as data centers, with the stated goal of improving energy efficiency and creating added value on a clean basis. Choi also took a stance on the business model: not a facility intended exclusively for the local public administration, but an infrastructure aimed at major global technology operators, through long-term lease arrangements for the entire facility. In support, he cited a plan for 140 MW of electrical capacity and an estimated annual value of between 600 and 2,700 billion won, combining leasing of the facilities and GPU cloud services.
Employment and requests to local policymakers
On the employment front, the CEO rejected the idea that a data center generates few jobs: in addition to oversight roles, he listed specialized activities such as server and network management, security and systems maintenance, adding the construction and plant-engineering supply chain, for an estimated total of more than 20,000 direct and indirect positions over three years. He further argued that such roles could retain local talent on the island with pay equal to or higher than in Seoul.
The invitation to institutions is to accelerate permits and ensure a reliable electricity supply, a condition Choi considers decisive for attracting private capital. The source finally reports another piece of content present on the page, concerning Radioville and the localization of radio-frequency modules for the defense industry, unrelated to the Tilon event and not explored in depth in the material.
What remains to be verified
The figures cited — 140 MW of capacity, estimated annual value and employment impact — are company statements reported by the source and are not confirmed by third parties. No timeline, investor or agreement already signed for the data center is indicated, nor the number of Kstory.ai customers or users. The feasibility of the energy plan, the authorization conditions and actual demand from global operators therefore remain to be ascertained.
