SKT Joins Hands with Supermicro and Lambda to Target AI DC Market

SKT to Supply Servers from Supermicro
Secures GPUs through Collaboration with Lambda
"AIDC Business Achievements within the Year through Global Cooperation"

SK Telecom is taking a full-scale approach to targeting the AI data center (DC) market, which is considered an essential infrastructure in the artificial intelligence (AI) field, together with global companies Supermicro and Lambda.

On the 28th (local time), SKT signed an agreement with global server and storage system manufacturer Supermicro for a global AIDC business at MWC 2024 held in Barcelona, Spain. AIDC is a next-generation data center for the AI era that provides GPU servers essential for AI training and inference, power supply for stable operation, and cooling systems for thermal efficiency management.

On the 28th (local time) at the MWC24 exhibition, SKT President Yoo Young-sang (10th from the left) and Supermicro Chief Growth Officer (CGO) Cenly Chen (11th from the left) posed for a commemorative photo after signing an MOU for cooperation in the AI Data Center (AIDC) sector.
[Photo by SK Telecom]

Supermicro is a key partner receiving chips from NVIDIA, a leader in the AI and GPU markets. It provides app-optimized server and storage systems across various markets such as data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, and edge computing. Its ability to design and build energy-saving and environmentally friendly products is considered a major competitive advantage.

Through the cooperation between the two companies, Supermicro is expected to supply servers to SKT’s AIDC. Additionally, SKT plans to review differentiated strategies in collaboration with related affiliates within the group, such as SK Broadband and SK Hynix, which possess relevant capabilities.

Earlier, on the 21st, SKT invested in the global GPU cloud company Lambda. Lambda is a company that provides cloud services by receiving the latest GPUs from NVIDIA.

The two companies also agreed to cooperate in the long term to equip AIDC servers supplied by Supermicro with AI semiconductor Sapeon neural processing unit (NPU) chips. They are also discussing selling Sapeon NPU servers to the global market through Supermicro’s global channels.

Based on the cooperation with Supermicro, SKT will integrate AI into its communication network and advance the intelligence and sophistication of future communication network edges (network endpoints). SKT expects that applying AI at the network edge will enable data processing closer to customers, thereby improving service performance.

SKT CEO Yoo Young-sang said, "Cooperation with global leaders in the AIDC field will be the cornerstone for SKT to emerge as a truly global AI company," adding, "Through collaboration with Supermicro and Lambda, we expect SKT AIDC to achieve meaningful business results within this year."

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