Based on its 23 million customer base, SK Telecom is combining its communications and artificial intelligence (AI) businesses to explore new revenue sources. The company will advance a "token gateway" business that connects customers' AI usage needs with optimal models and infrastructure, and plans to launch commercial services for an AI factory in collaboration with NVIDIA next year.
SK Telecom announced that CEO Jung Jae-heon held a town hall for employees at the Seoul SKT Tower on the 8th, unveiling the "SKT Growth Gear" strategy, which includes these details.
The core of this strategy is to connect communications, AI services, and AI infrastructure not as separate businesses, but as a single growth system. The plan is to leverage AI technology and AX (AI transformation) as common drivers to enhance synergy across businesses and secure a leading position at the gateway to the token economy.
CEO Jung stated, "The axis of AI competition is expanding beyond models and infrastructure to an ecosystem that stably generates, supplies, and utilizes tokens," adding, "For SK Telecom, which has concentrated its communications and AI capabilities, this presents a new growth opportunity."
The "token gateway," presented as a new business model, manages the AI usage patterns of enterprises and individuals and connects them with optimal AI models and infrastructure. It functions as a kind of control center that analyzes demand arising from AI service usage and links it to suitable models and computing resources.
SK Telecom plans to advance this business by leveraging its base of 23 million customers, payment systems, and AI platforms and infrastructure. The strategy is interpreted as connecting the communications subscriber base to AI service demand, which in turn drives growth in the AI infrastructure business.
The company will also expand the application of AI to its existing communications business. It plans to strengthen customized services for each customer through AI-based hyper-personalization services and secure autonomous network technology that allows AI to automatically optimize network operations.
In the AI service sector, SK Telecom will provide integrated support from service construction to operation, going beyond the boundaries between enterprise and individual customers. It will also strengthen its offensive in new markets, including defense and public AI, industry-specific AI, and the government's "AI for All" initiative.
Investment in AI infrastructure will also be expanded. Along with SK Horizon and SK Hyper, the company will expand data center and submarine cable businesses and advance the development of gigawatt (GW)-scale AI data centers. The AI factory in collaboration with NVIDIA will begin commercial services next year, with plans to gradually increase its scale.
The organizational operating model will also change. While existing AX focused on automating repetitive tasks and improving individual work efficiency, going forward, the entire organizational structure and business processes will be redesigned around AI. Soon, personnel to lead core businesses will be deployed in advance through an internal open recruitment process.
CEO Jung emphasized, "Communications and AI are interlocked as a single growth engine creating SK Telecom's future," adding, "Let us continue a one-team culture that maximizes organizational productivity and synergy based on AX and accelerates the pace of growth."
in TECH
