While most major South Korean companies are cautiously monitoring the Trump administration’s America-first trade policies and tariff announcements, Korean firms specialized in producing high voltage cables and large transformers are primed to make the best of a golden opportunity for their businesses.

The Stargate Project, which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years to build new AI infrastructure in the United States such as data centers, will require a lot of electricity as AI computing needs more power. According to the International Energy Agency, a single ChatGPT query requires 2.9 watt-hours of electricity, whereas a Google search consumes 0.3 watt-hours of electricity.

A 2020 study by the US Department of Commerce showed that the average age of in-service large power transformers was 38 years, which was already near or even past their designed life durability. In order to renew the country’s power grid, transformers are crucial, but the US domestic supply of transformers can only meet 20 percent of demand, according to research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

LS Cable & System and Taihan Cable & Solution have taking advantage of the external factors favoring their business environments and are ready to continue offering their products to the US power grid upgrade. Thanks to the surge in demand for cables across the world, especially in the US, LS Cable and Taihan Cable both posted record earnings last year.

HD Hyundai Electric, Hyosung Heavy Industries and LS Electric also benefited from the surge in demand for transformers in the US last year, as all three of them delivered their best annual earnings in 2024. With the US having to replace existing transformers to renew their decades-old power grid, Korean companies are expected to keep fulfilling the unquenched need.