SK Telecom plans to build a gigawatt-scale AI Cloud in Korea using the NVIDIA DSX platform, with the first AI factory coming online in 2027.
An AI Cloud is large-scale AI infrastructure consisting of AI factories that manufacture tokens, building blocks of intelligence, from data.
Unlike conventional large-scale providers offering general-purpose cloud services, AI Clouds specialize in GPU-based cloud computing tailored specifically for AI workloads across training, inference and agentic AI.
SK Telecom’s AI Cloud will be built on the NVIDIA DSX full-stack reference architecture of software, hardware and operations producing the lowest-cost tokens at maximum energy efficiency.
SK Telecom’s AI Cloud will power training, inference and agentic workloads including sovereign, physical and enterprise AI services for companies and industries across South Korea, with the vision to expand to greater Asia regions.
The initiative reflects South Korea’s role as one of the world’s most advanced pro-AI industrial economies. South Korean companies lead in telecommunications, memory, semiconductors, manufacturing, robotics, mobility and consumer technology — industries where AI is moving from research labs and chatbots into secure, production-grade deployments.
“Telecom networks are becoming national AI infrastructure,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.
“They connect people, companies, devices and machines — and now they can become the backbone of new AI clouds,” said Huang. “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.”
Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, said that through their partnership with NVIDIA, they have now secured full-stack AI infrastructure capabilities, from chips to data center operations.
The new SK Telecom AI Cloud is designed to serve rising demand for AI infrastructure, as accelerated AI computing growth continues to increase.
The new infrastructure builds on SK Telecom’s leadership in physical AI and agentic AI development.
Moreover, as part of this collaboration, SKT will become an NVIDIA Cloud Partner, joining a global program through which participants use NVIDIA’s latest AI infrastructure, software and developer ecosystem to deliver excellent AI performance and economics through AI cloud services.
Also, NVIDIA and SK Group announced plans to pursue joint research to codevelop next-generation AI factory architecture, extending their collaboration beyond infrastructure deployment.
The two companies will focus on silicon-to-grid innovation across accelerated computing, memory technologies and data center operations. NVIDIA and SK Group companies including SKT will also explore projects for full-stack AI factory optimization to drive more efficient, scalable and resilient AI services.
