LS Cable’s $689M Chesapeake campus doubles investment

Already docked in Hampton Roads, LS Cable & System is more than doubling its capital investment in Chesapeake manufacturing facilities and bringing its expected job creation total to 760.

The South Korean company will build a $689 million copper and advanced materials manufacturing campus in Chesapeake, the largest deal announced in the region within the last year. The project is expected to create 430 jobs.

LS Cable is the parent company of LS GreenLink USA, which started construction in April 2025 on its $681 million-plus advanced cable manufacturing facility in Chesapeake, which is expected to create 330 jobs.

The LS GreenLink facility set a record for the largest capital investment in Chesapeake, which the LS Cable project will break, officials say. Its expected investment would be the single largest capital investment in Hampton Roads history.

“This investment is not about building a single facility,” LS Cable President and CEO Bon-Kyu Koo said at the announcement event in December 2025. “It is about building a long-term presence. It is about working hand-in-hand with our partners to enhance America’s energy leadership, strengthen supply chain [resilience] and support industries that are essential to America’s economic future and security.”

The company plans to construct three facilities on the site: one for copper rod manufacturing, another for magnetic wires and a third for rare earth magnet manufacturing. In January, LS Cable was in the process of establishing three U.S. subsidiaries, says Patrick Shim, LS Cable’s managing director, who is based in Hampton Roads.

The new manufacturing plant will recycle copper scraps and produce copper rods for cables and will supply these materials to the GreenLink facility and other operations across the U.S., Shim says.

All the copper scraps will come from domestic sources, Koo says. The magnet wires to be made in the second facility are components of electric motors. The third element, rare earth magnets, are also components in electric motors.

The business will be supplying electric vehicle manufacturers in the U.S., including Hyundai and Kia facilities in Georgia, Shim says.

Rare earth materials for magnets “all mostly in the U.S. right now come from China,” Shim says, “and a lot of these motors are also not only used for EVs but for guided missiles and … fighter jets. … That’s why this business is very unique and important for the U.S. supply chain.”

Advanced weapons systems that use rare earth magnets include the Javelin missile, F-35 fighter jet, nuclear submarines and unmanned aerial vehicles. According to the International Energy Agency’s Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025, China is the leading refiner for 19 out of 20 strategic minerals, with an average market share of 70%.

LS Cable’s rare earth materials will come from Australia, be processed in Malaysia, Australia or Vietnam, and then sent to the U.S. for magnet manufacturing, Koo says.

As of early January, the facilities’ designs and their square footage were still being finalized while LS Cable was working on securing a site. The company, Shim says, expects to complete the permitting process by the end of the third quarter and be in operation by late 2027.

Offshore wind energy is in disfavor under the Trump administration, which paused five East Coast offshore wind projects at the end of 2025, including Dominion Energy’s $11.5 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, and the federal government has suspended ocean leases.

Even with these headwinds, Shim says that all three LS Cable businesses “already have customers in line.” Also, the LS GreenLink site, which the company expects to be fully operational in early 2028, already has orders from Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and the GreenLink facility’s construction is not affected by the Trump administration’s suspension of ocean leases and other actions.

“I think a lot of people think we came to Virginia because of the CVOW project,” Shim says, “but we were not a supplier to that. … Our facility in Chesapeake will become our manufacturing hub to cover our East Coast customers, but also European customers as well.”

Initially manufacturing only subsea cables, LS GreenLink expects to add to its previous investment with a second phase for building land cables.

Founded in 1962, LS Cable develops and provides cable solutions for power grids and communication networks. The company has more than 6,500 employees and 40 subsidiaries across 17 countries.