SK Telecom is pursuing a nationwide 1GW-class hyperscale AI data center expansion to crown Korea as Asia’s largest AI data center hub, with OpenAI collaborations and partnerships with SK hynix, SK Ecoplant, and SK Innovation for end-to-end AIDC solutions.

Internally, SKT is reshaping work culture toward AI-centric operations through the AX Dashboard, an AI Board, and an AI playground that enables more than 2,000 active AI agents across departments.

The transformation includes a One Person, One AI initiative and no-code agents to empower employees and accelerate AI adoption.

A broader cultural and operational overhaul features an AX dashboard to track AI adoption, an internal AI Board, a no-code AI agent platform used by thousands, and the overarching goal of widespread AI-enabled productivity.

The overarching message emphasizes a bold, company-wide transformation aimed at delivering better customer value, AI-driven operations, and Korea’s leadership in global AI innovation.

The strategy centers on becoming an AI-powered telco by overhauling IT systems and embedding AI across operations to enable hyper-personalized pricing, roaming, and membership, under a Zero Trust security framework and AI-driven autonomous network operations for ultra-low latency.

SKT will redesign services and products for customer friendliness, develop an integrated AI agent across touchpoints, and enhance two-way communication with customers using AI-powered tools like AI contact centers and AI personas.

The company plans a comprehensive AI overhaul of operations, redesigning sales, circuits, and billing for AI-centricity and investing heavily to enable an AI-friendly infrastructure and automation across networks.

The full-stack AI strategy centers on ultra-large AI data centers (including the Haein GPU cluster) and expanding to over 1GW of hyperscale capacity, with in-house models growing from 519B parameters (A.X K1) to beyond 1,000B and multimodal capabilities.

At MWC26, SKT’s CEO announced an AI Native strategy that will transform the company’s systems, infrastructure, and business model around artificial intelligence.

SKT will upgrade its sovereign AI foundation model from 519 billion parameters to over 1 trillion, adding multimodal capabilities for image, voice, and video data starting later this year.