South Korea’s steel exports showed signs of recovery amid strong global demand for AI data center construction. 

According to South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, steel exports reached US$2.14 billion in June, up 9.6% year-on-year. This marked the country’s first steel export growth in 14 months.

The US market was the main driver of the recovery, with South Korea’s steel export volume to the US rising 58.3% in the first half of the year, from 1.39 million tons to 2.2 million tons.

Notably, exports of reinforcing bars used in data center framework construction reached about 483,500 tons, sharply higher than 14,560 tons in the same period last year.