SKT teams up with Nvidia on gigawatt-scale AI cloud
The Korean telco continues its push to become a global artificial intelligence powerhouse, leveraging Nvidia’s DSX architecture to build an AI factory for sovereign workloads and token generation
South Korean telecoms giant SK Telecom (SKT) plans to construct a gigawatt-scale artificial intelligence (AI) cloud in its home country, partnering with Nvidia to build dedicated infrastructure to support the country’s growing AI demands.
The initiative will see SKT deploy Nvidia’s DSX platform to build a large-scale AI factory dedicated to manufacturing the compute tokens required for advanced AI workloads. The first of these facilities is expected to come online in 2027.
Unlike general-purpose cloud environments, SKT’s AI cloud will be customised for graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated computing. It is designed to power training, inference and agentic AI workloads, with a focus on providing sovereign, physical and enterprise AI services to industries across Korea. SKT plans to eventually expand these services to the broader Asian market.
Nvidia’s DSX platform is a full-stack reference architecture comprising software, hardware and operations to generate AI tokens. This includes the DSX MaxLPS software to drive the highest possible token performance per megawatt, along with the DSX OS operating layer to manage the lifecycle, health automation and multi-tenant capabilities of an AI factory.
“Telecom networks are becoming national AI infrastructure,” said Nividia CEO Jensen Huang. “They connect people, companies, devices and machines – and now they can become the backbone of new AI clouds. With Nvidia DSX, SK Telecom can build Korea’s AI cloud at scale and bring agents, enterprise and physical AI to the companies and industries that power Korea and the world.”
The partnership goes beyond AI infrastructure deployment. SK Group and Nvidia also announced plans to launch joint research into next-generation AI factory architectures. This “silicon-to-grid” innovation will focus on accelerated computing, memory technologies and datacentre operations to drive more resilient and scalable AI services.
With Nvidia DSX, SK Telecom can build Korea’s AI cloud at scale and bring agents, enterprise and physical AI to the companies and industries that power Korea and the world
Jensen Huang, Nividia
SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won noted that the partnership secures full-stack AI infrastructure capabilities for the company, spanning from chip-level hardware to wider datacentre operations. “We will work with Nvidia to tackle GPU, memory and energy challenges, and become a leading AI cloud company shaping Asia’s AI ecosystem,” he added.
SKT will also officially become an Nvidia Cloud Partner, joining the tech giant’s global ecosystem of AI infrastructure and software providers.
Building a full-stack AI powerhouse
The Nvidia agreement is the latest in a string of moves by SKT to transform itself from a traditional connectivity provider into a full-stack, global AI company.
Earlier this year, a consortium led by SKT built the A.X K1 foundation model that not only excels in Korean-based tasks, but also in mathematics and coding. The 519-billion-parameter model is currently being used in the South Korean government’s sovereign AI project.
Furthermore, SKT has been making substantial investments in the broader AI ecosystem. Besides establishing a dedicated AI investment unit to back emerging startups, the operator has poured a lot of capital into generative AI, most notably making a $100m investment into Claude developer Anthropic in 2023.
