SKT

SK Telecom B2B AI Push: Public Sector & Defense

SK Telecom B2B AI Push: Public Sector & Defense
SK Telecom is reorganizing around artificial intelligence to accelerate a B2B push, with a sharp focus on public sector and defense opportunities in South Korea. At a town hall marking six months in the role, SK Telecom’s CEO signaled a decisive shift: make AI the company’s growth engine and align operations, culture, and go-to-market around enterprise needs. The operator outlined an organizational, technology, and culture overhaul to strengthen competitiveness across B2B AI. The company will scale its AI data center footprint by combining capabilities from SK Group affiliates and global partners. SK Telecom advanced its in-house foundation model to a second phase.

SK Telecom, Arm and Rebellions Launch Sovereign AI Inference Platform

SK Telecom, Arm and Rebellions Launch Sovereign AI Inference Platform
A new alliance between SK Telecom (SKT), Arm, and Rebellions targets the fast-growing AI inference market with a server platform designed for sovereign AI and telecom-grade data centers. SKT will validate a new AI server that combines Arm’s AGI CPU—its first Arm-designed data center processor, based on Neoverse CSS V3—with Rebellions’ RebelCard inference accelerator in live AI data center environments. The partners will co-develop the full software stack, from firmware up, and test telco-specific models and large-scale workloads, including SKT’s proprietary foundation model, A.X K1. Industry focus is shifting from training to inference at scale, where energy, latency, and total cost of ownership (TCO) are decisive.

SK Telecom executive cuts: 30% reduction

SK Telecom executive cuts: 30% reduction
Reports indicate SK Group will reduce executive ranks by up to 30%, a move that would reshape decision-making across affiliates including SK Telecom (SKT). For SKT, which sits at the nexus of the group’s AI, cloud, and connectivity ambitions, executive trims would concentrate authority and compress approval chains at a sensitive time for 5G monetization and AI platform bets. Executive consolidation at a Tier-1 operator tends to reset priorities, procurement rhythms, and partner engagement models.

SK Telecom expands AIDC for AI infrastructure in Asia

SK Telecom expands AIDC for AI infrastructure in Asia
At SK AI Summit 2025, CEO Jung Jaihun outlined plans to expand the Ulsan artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) to 1GW-class capacity, stand up a nationwide trio of hubs (Gasan in the Seoul metro, Ulsan in the south, and a new southwest site), and take the model into Southeast Asia starting with Vietnam. The operator is also deepening technology collaborations with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Edge AI and with NVIDIA on AI-RAN and a Manufacturing AI Cloud; it intends to buy more than 2,000 NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs and scale Korea’s largest GPU cluster, Haein, as core compute for industrial AI workloads.

South Korea Sovereign AI Strategy

South Korea Sovereign AI Strategy
South Korea is funding a national AI stack to reduce dependence on foreign models, protect data, and tune AI to its language and industries. The government has committed ₩530 billion (about $390 million) to five companies building large-scale foundation models: LG AI Research, SK Telecom, Naver Cloud, NC AI, and Upstage. Progress will be reviewed every six months, with underperformers cut and resources concentrated on the strongest until two leaders remain. The policy goal is clear: build world-class, Korean-first AI capability that supports national security, economic competitiveness, and data sovereignty. For telecoms and enterprise IT, this is a shift from “consume global models” to “operate domestic AI platforms” integrated with local data, compliance, and services.

Is AI Underperforming in Telecom? Challenges, Use Cases & the Road Ahead

Is AI Underperforming in Telecom? Challenges, Use Cases & the Road Ahead
The telecom sector once hailed AI as a game-changer, but is it delivering? This article explores why many operators report low ROI on AI tools, and how legacy systems, cultural resistance, and regulatory hurdles stall adoption. Despite challenges, AI shows targeted promise in predictive maintenance, fraud detection, and 5G network slicing.

SK Telecom and VAST Data Optimize Korea’s Sovereign AI Infrastructure based on NVIDIA Supercomputers

SK Telecom and VAST Data Optimize Korea’s Sovereign AI Infrastructure
SK Telecom is partnering with VAST Data to power the Petasus AI Cloud, a sovereign GPUaaS built on NVIDIA accelerated computing and Supermicro systems, designed to support both training and inference at scale for government, research, and enterprise users in South Korea. By placing VAST Data's AI Operating System at the heart of Petasus, SKT is unifying data and compute services into a single control plane, turning legacy bare-metal workflows that took days or weeks into virtualized environments that can be provisioned in minutes and operated with carrier-grade resilience.

Korean Telecoms Launch 300B-Won AI & Semiconductor Fund

  • Tech News & Insight
  • August 13, 2025
Korean Telecoms Launch 300B-Won AI & Semiconductor Fund
South Korea's government and its three national carriers are aligning fresh capital to speed AI and semiconductor competitiveness and to anchor a private-led innovation flywheel. SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus will seed a new pool exceeding 300 billion won (about $219 million) via the Korea IT Fund (KIF) to back core and foundational AI, AI transformation (AX), and commercialization in ICT. KIF, formed in 2002 by the carriers, will receive 150 billion won in new commitments, matched by at least an equal amount from external fund managers. The platforms lifespan has been extended to 2040 to sustain long-cycle bets.

SK Group and AWS Build South Korea’s Largest $5.13 billion AI Data Center

SK Group and AWS Build South Korea’s Largest $5.13 billion AI Data Center
SK Group and AWS are partnering to build South Korea’s largest AI data center in Ulsan with a $5.13 billion investment. The facility will launch with 60,000 GPUs and 103 MW capacity, expanding to 1 GW, creating up to 78,000 jobs. This milestone boosts South Korea’s AI leadership, data sovereignty, and positions Ulsan as a major AI hub in Asia.

Web3 in Telecom: How Blockchain and Crypto Are Reshaping Connectivity

Web3 in Telecom: How Blockchain and Crypto Are Reshaping Connectivity
Web3 is redefining the telecom industry by introducing decentralized infrastructure, blockchain-based billing, smart contracts, NFTs, and digital identity. This article explores how telcos can evolve from connectivity providers to key players in Web3 ecosystems—offering programmable services, token economies, and secure, user-centric digital experiences.

SK Telecom Data Breach: Analysis and Industry Impact

SK Telecom Data Breach: Analysis and Industry Impact
The recent SK Telecom data breach, termed the industry's worst by CEO Ryu Young-sang, led to a massive customer exodus and highlighted urgent cybersecurity needs. With 70,000 users lost, the telecom giant faces financial and legal challenges, emphasizing the critical role of robust data security measures.

SK Telecom Integrates Gemini 2.0 Flash into Adot for Smarter AI Assistance

SK Telecom Integrates Gemini 2.0 Flash into Adot for Smarter AI Assistance
SK Telecom’s AI assistant, adot, now features Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash, unlocking real-time Google search, source verification, and support for 12 large language models. The integration boosts user trust, expands adoption from 3.2M to 8M users, and sets a new standard in AI transparency and multi-model flexibility for digital assistants in the telecom sector.
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