SK Telecom "Tripling AI Investment Share... Targeting 25 Trillion KRW Revenue by 2028"

Yoo Young-sang, SKT CEO, to Hold Press Conference on 26th
Announces Strategy for 'Leap to Global AI Company'
"Strengthening In-house Competitiveness + Building Joint Front"

SK Telecom has set a goal to triple its investment proportion in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next five years and achieve sales of over 25 trillion won by 2028. The company aims to become a global AI leader through AI assistant services and telecommunications-specialized large language models (LLM).

Yu Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom, held a press conference on the 26th at T Tower in Jung-gu, Seoul, stating, "We will strengthen our competitiveness centered on AI and collaborate comprehensively to leap forward as a genuine 'global AI company.'"

At the conference, CEO Yu announced the 'AI Pyramid Strategy,' which focuses on three main areas: AI infrastructure, AIX, and AI services, aiming to innovate all sectors of industry and daily life.

Regarding this, CEO Yu explained, "It is a strategy that bundles the 'self-strengthening' model?enhancing our AI technology and creating AI services to build close relationships with customers?and the 'collaboration' model centered on the AI alliance into a pyramid-shaped, step-by-step approach."

They plan to significantly increase the proportion of AI-related investments. The investment ratio will expand about threefold from 12% of the cumulative investment over the past five years (2019?2023) to 33% over the next five years (2024?2028), with a target to achieve sales exceeding 25 trillion won by 2028. Last year, SK Telecom's sales were approximately 17 trillion won.

First, the AI infrastructure area includes data centers, semiconductors, and multi-LLMs. SKT plans to introduce energy solutions such as immersion cooling systems (next-generation thermal management technology that cools products by submerging them in cooling fluid) and hydrogen fuel cells to help reduce energy consumption in data centers.

Additionally, by combining the NPU (Neural Processing Unit) from its AI semiconductor subsidiary 'Sapeon' and HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) from SK Hynix, SKT plans to expand into the AI hosting business, which offers higher profit margins.

Yoo Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom [Photo by Yonhap News]

This will actively promote the global expansion of data centers. SK Telecom and SK Broadband believe they can successfully drive global expansion through synergies involving their data center operation capabilities and technologies, as well as relationships with global CSPs (Cloud Service Providers). The scale of domestic data centers is also planned to be expanded to about twice the current size by 2030.

Sapeon, established by SKT, is set to release the next-generation inference AI chip ‘X330’ by the end of this year. SKT has named its AI technology brand 'A.X' and designated the large language model as 'A.X LLM.'

The LLM strategy will be pursued on two tracks. While advancing its own LLM based on decades of accumulated data, SKT will also build joint fronts with major domestic and international AI players such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Konan Technology.

In this regard, SKT has invested $100 million (approximately 130 billion won) in the U.S. AI company Anthropic. The two companies plan to develop multilingual LLMs in Korean, English, German, and other languages, focusing on telecommunications-specialized services.

Furthermore, SKT aims to innovate productivity and customer experience across its core businesses?including mobile, broadband, and enterprise?by integrating AI through AIX (AI Transformation). The strategy also includes expanding SKT’s AI capabilities into adjacent fields such as mobility, healthcare, and media to enhance value.

By integrating AI into marketing, customer centers, and improving network infrastructure operation efficiency, SKT expects to achieve cost reductions of approximately 20?30% or more in the mid to long term compared to current levels.

SK Broadband’s Btv will also evolve into AI tv to provide new customer experiences. Examples include 'AI Curation,' where the TV identifies individuals and displays personalized content, and 'AI Home,' which allows users to enjoy various media services through conversations with an AI agent.

At the '2023 Seoul Mobility Show Press Briefing' held at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi, the SK Telecom exhibition hall is set up. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

SKT will officially launch the Korean LLM service 'Aidot,' introduced last year, after about a year. SKT anticipates that Aidot will revolutionize customers’ communication experiences and expand the connection between daily life and AI services, evolving into a 'personal AI assistant.'

In particular, Aidot plans to integrate AI into all aspects of daily life such as weather, commuting, and sleeping, with AI sleep management and AI music services scheduled for release in September.

SKT plans to rapidly expand its global AI personal assistant service worldwide.

To this end, SKT formed a global telco AI alliance in July with Deutsche Telekom, e&, Singtel, and others, agreeing to jointly develop telecommunications-specialized LLMs and intelligence platforms. The combined subscriber base of these telecom companies reaches approximately 1.2 billion people across 45 countries worldwide.

CEO Yu said, "Please look forward to SKT as a global AI company that benefits customers through technology and services, enhances industrial productivity, and simultaneously addresses social challenges."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.