On the eve of Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona, SK Telecom CEO Ryu Young-sang unveiled an ambitious plan to establish a hyperscale artificial intelligence data center, collaborating with major global technology firms.
Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Ryu outlined the facility’s specifications. It will be equipped with 60,000 graphics processing units (GPUs), with a power consumption capacity of 100 megawatts. This data center is designed as key infrastructure for the company’s AI strategy, with plans to eventually expand its capacity to one to two gigawatts, solidifying its position as a significant hub in the Asia-Pacific region. This center is expected to be the largest in Korea upon completion.
Korea is currently in the early stages of developing AI data centers. The government has plans to invest up to 2.5 trillion won ($1.7 billion) by 2027 in the National AI Computing Center, which will house only 30,000 GPUs – half the capacity of SK Telecom’s planned infrastructure.
Leveraging its extensive experience in data center operations and nationwide telecommunications infrastructure, SK Telecom has been actively expanding its presence in the AI data center market. The company launched its first AI data center in Seoul last year and introduced cloud-based GPU-as-a-Service. SK Telecom aims to address global GPU supply shortages by strengthening its partnership with Lambda, a major supplier of Nvidia’s GPUs.
Furthermore, SK Telecom is pursuing synergies with its affiliates, including SK hynix, which produces high-bandwidth memory, and Rebellions, a neural processing unit developer.
CEO Ryu outlined four key business models for the company’s AI data center initiatives:
- GPUaaS
- Hyperscale AI data centers
- Modular AI data centers
- Customized AI data centers
“Modular AI data centers can be constructed within three months in 20-40 kW units, similar to container boxes. They reduce construction costs by 70 percent and double a center’s power efficiency, making them ideal for startups and research institutions in urgent need of GPU resources,” he said.
SK Telecom also plans to complete version 4.0 of its proprietary large language model, A.X, during the first half of this year. This update will further enhance its conversational AI and multimodal capabilities. Ryu noted that A.X has already completely replaced ChatGPT in AI call summaries for the company’s A. service app.
Meanwhile, Aster, a new AI service scheduled to launch in North America this month, is part of SK Telecom’s broader strategy to expand its global footprint. “We will launch A. Biz, a business-oriented version of the A. service, across 21 SK Group affiliates this year to solidify our position in the AI B2B market,” he added.
Through the Global Telco AI Alliance – a coalition of major telecom firms, including Deutsche Telekom, SoftBank, e&, and Singtel – SK Telecom intends to localize and expand Aster beyond North America. The alliance is also on track to establish a joint venture by the end of this month, strengthening cross-industry collaboration.
