Samsung Group companies, including Samsung Electronics, agreed to invest a combined US$1 billion (S$1.27 billion) in Helix Digital Infrastructure, a KKR & Co-backed US company, deepening the South Korean conglomerate’s push into the rapidly expanding artificial-intelligence infrastructure market.
Samsung Electronics, Samsung C&T, Samsung SDS, Samsung SDI, Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance will participate in the investment, according to a statement on Sept 29 by Samsung.
The investment would give South Korea’s biggest industrial group a stake in a company spanning several businesses where Samsung already has significant operations, including semiconductors, construction, data centres, cloud computing and finance.
Helix was launched in June by KKR together with the Kuwait Investment Authority, Nvidia and US power producer Vistra, with more than US$10 billion in committed long-term capital.
It is led by Adam Selipsky, the former chief executive of Amazon Web Services. Nvidia is a strategic partner, while Vistra is Helix’s preferred power partner.
Rather than operating simply as another data-centre developer, Helix is attempting to secure all the infrastructure needed to bring enormous computing facilities online quickly. BloombeRg
