{"id":2276,"date":"2025-11-03T13:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T04:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/?p=2276"},"modified":"2025-11-03T13:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T04:06:12","slug":"sk-telecom-accelerates-expansion-of-its-ai-data-center-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/2276","title":{"rendered":"SK Telecom Accelerates Expansion of Its AI Data Center Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2022 Expanding the artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) in Ulsan to a 1 GW-scale capacity, targeting the Asian market with LNG energy-specialized AIDC solutions<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Strengthening Edge AI, AI-RAN and Physical AI Cloud technologies through collaboration with global tech giants like AWS and NVIDIA<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Evolving into a comprehensive AIDC developer, overseeing the entire AIDC process<\/strong>
\n\u2022\u00a0Partnering with the government to achieve Global Top 3 (G3) status in AI<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"SK<\/p>\n

SK Telecom CEO Jung Jaihun delivers the keynote speech at the SK AI Summit 2025, held on November 3<\/p>\n

SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) announced today that it is evolving into a comprehensive artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) developer and entering the global market. Jung Jaihun, the newly appointed CEO of SK Telecom, unveiled the company\u2019s vision during his keynote speech at the SK AI Summit 2025.<\/p>\n

Establishing major AIDC hubs in key regions of Korea with energy-specialized solutions for expansion into Asia<\/h2>\n

SK Telecom plans to build additional global partnerships and make further investments in its Ulsan AIDC, expanding it to a 1 GW-scale capacity. The company aims to replicate this model by establishing additional AIDCs, encouraging global capital investment in Korea, and positioning the country as Asia\u2019s biggest AI hub.<\/p>\n

In October 2025, SK Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a strategic partnership for building an AIDC in the southwestern region of Korea.<\/p>\n

With this, SK Telecom secures AIDC hubs across three major regions of Korea: the Seoul metropolitan area (Gasan), the southern region (Ulsan) and the southwest region. This accelerates the establishment of key AI infrastructure nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the unveiling of the Ulsan AIDC, global enterprises have begun to take notice of SK Telecom\u2019s AIDC development capabilities,\u201d CEO Jung said. \u201cWe are laying the foundation for South Korea to become Asia\u2019s AI infrastructure hub.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, Jung revealed plans to enter the Southeast Asian market by leveraging energy-specialized AIDC solutions alongside SK Group affiliates.<\/p>\n

For instance, in collaboration with SK Innovation, SK Telecom plans to build an AIDC in Vietnam that ensures a stable power supply through a liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plant and utilizes cold energy for data center cooling systems.<\/p>\n

Driving technological innovation with AWS and NVIDIA through Edge AI, AI-RAN and Manufacturing AI Cloud<\/h2>\n

\u201cAs AI services expand, the network infrastructure that telecom companies have built is being re-evaluated,\u201d CEO Jung said. \u201cUtilizing nationwide telecom infrastructure, telecom companies can uniquely bridge the gap between AIDC and on-device AI through Edge AI1<\/sup> and intelligent telecom technologies like AI-RAN.\u201d<\/p>\n

To accelerate the implementation of Edge AI, SK Telecom has established a medium-to-long-term R&D partnership with Amazon Web Service (AWS), combining SK Telecom\u2019s expertise in Korea\u2019s AI infrastructure with AWS\u2019s global cloud technology capabilities.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, in collaboration with NVIDIA and partners from the government and academia, SK Telecom aims to demonstrate AI-RAN technology, which involves intelligent network embedded with AI from their design phases. AI-RAN is expected to serve as critical infrastructure for Physical AI and bolster Korea\u2019s manufacturing competitiveness.<\/p>\n

SK Telecom also plans to acquire more than 2,000 NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs to build a Manufacturing AI Cloud.<\/p>\n

Jung highlighted that the Manufacturing AI Cloud will be utilized for AI transformation in SK Group\u2019s key manufacturing arms, such as SK hynix, serving as core infrastructure for innovations like digital twins2<\/sup> and robotics AI in manufacturing facilities.<\/p>\n

Evolving into a comprehensive AIDC developer and commercializing AIDC solution packages<\/h2>\n

\u201cSK Telecom is committed to expanding its role in the AIDC business and evolving into a comprehensive AIDC developer overseeing the entire AIDC project \u2014 including design, construction and operation,\u201d CEO Jung said.<\/p>\n

SK Telecom plans to commercialize an AIDC solution package, streamlining and speeding up AIDC construction by internalizing four key AI infrastructure technologies in collaboration with global leaders. These include:
\n1. Out-rack solution: Managing external server facilities such as cooling, power and security
\n2. Clustering solution: Optimizing server interconnection
\n3. In-rack solution: Enhancing server-level efficiency
\n4. Energy solution: Increasing efficiency in power and thermal management<\/p>\n

Over the past year, SK Telecom has laid the foundation for its evolution into a comprehensive AIDC developer by achieving key milestones such as signing an MoU with AWS for the SK AIDC in Ulsan, establishing Korea\u2019s largest GPU cluster, \u2018Haein,\u2019 and being selected by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) for the Proprietary AI Foundation Model Project.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI infrastructure is a core driver of both corporate and national competitiveness,\u201d CEO Jung said. \u201cAs Korea\u2019s leading AI company, SK Telecom will work hand in hand with the government to achieve Global Top 3 status in AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

1<\/sup> Edge AI processes data at base stations or edge servers rather than sending it to the cloud, enhancing ultra-low<\/span>
\nlatency, security and network efficiency.<\/span>
\n2<\/sup> Digital Twin refer to the replication of physical objects, processes or systems in digital environments for<\/span>
\nsimulation, analysis and prediction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"SK<\/p>\n

SK Telecom CEO Jung Jaihun delivers the keynote speech at the SK AI Summit 2025, held on November 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2022 Expanding the artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) in Ulsan to a 1 GW-scale capacity, targeting the Asian market with LNG energy-specialized AIDC solutions \u2022 Strengthening Edge AI, AI-RAN and Physical AI Cloud technologies through collaboration with global tech giants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24,490,421,61,491,406,486],"class_list":["post-2276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","tag-ai","tag-ai-ran","tag-aidc","tag-ceo","tag-jung-jaihun","tag-sk-ai-summit","tag-sk-ai-summit-2025"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2276"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2283,"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2276\/revisions\/2283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.sktelecom.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}