- SK Telecom has established an independent in-house company to consolidate its AI-related businesses to boost innovation and growth
- It is also building sovereign AI infrastructure with GPU-as-a-Service based on Nvidia Blackwell GPUs and a hyperscale AI data center in Ulsan.
- SK Telecom also collaborates with global AI leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic to enhance its AI capabilities and market position
South Korea’s largest service provider, SK Telecom, has doubled down on its AI-related efforts, both on infrastructure as well as services, in line with its strategy to become a global AI company.
SK Telecom recently launched an independent in-house company (CIC) called AI Company-in-Company (CIC), consolidating all AI-related businesses and capabilities under one umbrella, aiming to fast-track innovation across consumer and enterprise AI services. The company plans to invest around $3.5 billion (KRW 5 trillion) in AI over the next five years, targeting annual AI revenue of the same amount by 2030.
“SK Telecom is a significant force in the AI arena, contributing as both a major technology user and an infrastructure provider,” said Daeil Chun, Senior Research Analyst at IDC Korea.
Central to SK Telecom’s AI strategy is “A.X 4.0,” its proprietary large language model (LLM) set for completion in early 2025, focusing on conversational and multimodal AI capabilities. Currently, A.X is driving AI-powered call summarization and productivity tools across the group, processing over 50 million daily requests.
In addition, SK Telecom also launched A-dot Biz, an enterprise AI agent designed to support tasks such as meeting notes, recruitment, and schedule management, expected to be deployed across 25 group companies by the end of 2025.
“SK Telecom is also a key player in the Korean government's "Sovereign AI Foundation Models" project, leading one of five consortiums. The government selected it for its proven ability to build telecom-specific foundation models from scratch, aiming to develop large-scale, homegrown AI models tailored to Korean culture and society,” said Chun of IDC Korea.
Developing infrastructure for the AI era
On developing the infrastructure for AI, the Korean service provider was in the news recently for the launch of its new sovereign AI infrastructure to provide GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) based on Nvidia Blackwell GPUs. “SK Telecom is targeting the B2B market in Korea with its GPUaaS offering. It is not limited to any specific industry,” said Lee Jae Jun, Team Leader of SK Telecom’s GPUaaS Business Team told Fierce Network.
“We have also secured a role in the Ministry of Science and ICT’s program aimed at enhancing the foundation of AI computing resource utilization through its GPUaaS, powered by the B200 cluster. This initiative aligns with Korea’s national sovereign AI strategy. We anticipate that GPU cluster will play a pivotal role in advancing Korean AI models,” added Jun.
“SK Telecom has partnered with Penguin Solutions to launch a new AI datacenter business, targeting the AI inference economy and the sovereign AI infrastructure market. It is also developing the Ulsan AI datacenter, a massive hyperscale facility. This hub is designed to meet the growing demands of the generative AI (GenAI) era, accelerate SKT's business-to-business (B2B) AI plans, and strategically position the company as a leading AI hub in the Asia/Pacific region,” explained Chun.
Global partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic
Another key component of SK Telecom’s AI strategy is collaboration with global players and industry leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic. It has formed an exclusive business-to-consumer partnership with OpenAI, which offers OpenAI’s ChatGPT to SK Telecom’s subscribers. It is geared to accelerate the adoption of AI in the Korean market. The two companies are also working closely to support initiatives around AI infrastructure development in the country.
On the other hand, SK Telecom has also partnered with Anthropic about two years ago to develop an LLM customized to its needs.
SK Telecom’s AI strategy is closely aligned with South Korea’s focus on using AI to emerge as a leader in the global AI ecosystem. In addition, several Asian service providers, including Indonesia’s Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and Axiata Group, are trying to leverage the technology to grow their business as well as to improve efficiency and customer experience.