LG Electronics is discussing site selection and government support for a large-scale chiller production facility in Virginia, responding to rising AI data center cooling demand and requests from global technology customers for local manufacturing. The investment is estimated at about 500 billion won ($364.6 million), more than twice the roughly 200 billion won ($145.8 million) spent on LG’s Pyeongtaek plant, its global core chiller base. Construction could begin after negotiations with Virginia conclude. The company is negotiating multiple supply contracts with Big Tech companies including Microsoft, and financial industry analysts see a high probability of a 2.5 trillion-won ($1.8 billion) cooling-solution contract in October. Northern Virginia hosts major data center operators including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle, while local production could reduce shipping costs, delivery times and tariff exposure. The AI data center cooling market is projected to expand from $18.4 billion last year to $49.9 billion in 2034.