– Seize the golden time of major transformation with “customer value and AI” as two top priorities to drive change
– Significantly revamp the systems and infrastructure that serve as the foundation of communications, centered on AI
– Redesigning customer-friendly products, promoting integrated AI agents, and strengthening communication with customers
– Promote hyperscale AI data center, develop 1000B AI model, and focus on AI manufacturing for Korea to become one of the top three AI leaders in the world
Barcelona, March 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM, “SKT”) announced a major transformation to lead in the AI era.
SKT CEO Jeong Jae-hoon held a press conference in Barcelona, Spain on March 1 to announce the company’s “AI native” innovation strategy, which includes AI infrastructure restructuring and large-scale investment plans.
SK Telecom CEO announces “AI native” strategy at MWC26, driving a leap forward in Korea’s AI innovation
This strategy reflects SKT’s ambition to redesign the telecommunications leader’s DNA into an AI-driven DNA, strengthen its core strengths, and lead South Korea’s rise to becoming one of the world’s top three AI leaders through bold challenges and changes.
CEO Jung Jae-hoon said, “SKT is currently in a golden age of transformation where the two issues of “customer value innovation” and “AI innovation” intersect in a borderless convergence environment that goes beyond communications. SKT defines “customers as the essence of our business,” and we will evolve into a company that makes meaningful contributions to customers and Korea through innovation through AI.”
- Maximize customer value ‘Telecommunications company powered by AI‘
By applying AI across all areas of telecommunications, SKT plans to build stronger relationships with customers and significantly improve their perceived value.
To achieve this, SKT will undertake a major overhaul of the integrated IT systems underlying its communications services and redesign them to be optimized for AI.
SKT will build an integrated system centered on AI, including sales IT, line management, and billing systems, and will be able to quickly design and provide personalized plans and memberships tailored to customer needs.
In particular, SKT has established a Zero Trust information security framework across all systems to enhance security through strict authentication, access control, network segmentation, and AI-based integrated security monitoring.
SKT is also accelerating its “autonomous network operations” strategy, which leverages AI to automate network management.
SKT plans to move from human-centered operations to AI-driven autonomous systems across wireless quality management, traffic control, network equipment and facility operations, with the goal of maximizing customer-perceived quality. The company plans to use AI-RAN technology to provide ultra-fast, seamless, and ultra-low latency communications.
- From service to customer touchpoints, every touchpoint is redesigned to be customer-friendly.—Strengthening two-way communication with customers
SKT plans to redesign its communication services and products to be more user-friendly for customers, while enhancing two-way communication with customers.
SKT prioritizes customer convenience by restructuring services such as pricing, roaming and membership into simple, intuitive formats and automatically delivering personalized packages.
SKT is also developing an “integrated AI agent” that connects customer experiences distributed across various touchpoints, including T World (SKT’s main customer portal) and T Direct Shop (SKT’s official online store).
SKT aims to build a single agent that delivers personalized experiences at every touchpoint by rapidly analyzing customers’ daily patterns and needs with AI. In addition, SKT will power its AI Contact Center (AICC) to enable all customer service representatives to use AI to provide accurate and fast support.
Offline stores will also leverage AI to move from sales-centric operations to offering highly customized curation services, including providing deeper customer experiences, pinpointing needs, and automatically providing personalized recommendations even after a visit.
Additionally, SKT plans to create “AI personas” to analyze digital behavioral data across different customer segments, enabling a comprehensive understanding of each customer’s needs and preferences through natural conversational Q&A. This approach allows SKT to communicate more effectively with all of its customers.
SKT is further evolving “A.” A-DoT Phone” into a true AI agent that can automatically organize call notes and schedules, connect customers with personalized services, and even take relevant actions.
SKT plans to increase opportunities for employees to engage directly with customers on-site and facilitate two-way communication. SKT will continue to actively listen to the voices of a wide range of customers and experts from industry and academia this year, and plans to thoroughly reflect those voices in all aspects of corporate management.
- Establishing Asia by building 1GW class AI data centers nationwide‘s Largest AIDC Hub
SKT aims to build 1GW-class hyperscale AI data center (AIDC) infrastructure across South Korea, attract global investment, and establish the country as Asia’s largest AIDC hub.
In addition to GPU cluster Haein, SKT is building AIDC and plans to expand to over 1GW of hyperscale capacity through global partnerships. The company also plans to work with OpenAI to build an AIDC in southwestern South Korea as part of its broader vision to establish a nationwide AI infrastructure network.
SKT will collaborate with SK Hynix, SK Ecoplant and SK Innovation to ensure solutions across the entire value chain for AIDC, from construction to cooling, servers, energy and operations, providing industry-leading cost efficiencies for AIDC.
Last year, SKT applied the high-performance and highly efficient virtualization solution “Petasus AI Cloud” to the GPU cluster Haein built for GPUaaS, and this year plans to offer Petasus AI Cloud to the global market.
SKT will upgrade South Korea’s current sovereign AI platform model, which has 519 billion parameters, to more than 1T (1 trillion parameters) to ensure AI sovereignty and promote innovation across the industry. In particular, SKT plans to strengthen the model by adding multimodal functions that can process not only image data but also audio and video data starting in the second half of this year.
In addition, SKT plans to focus on jointly developing a “manufacturing-specific AI solution” package with SK Hynix to strengthen the competitiveness of South Korean manufacturing industries such as semiconductors and energy. The package analyzes process data in real time to reduce reject rates and maximize equipment efficiency and is available in three formats: Infrastructure, Model, and Solution.
CEO Jung said, “AIDC can be considered the heart of Korea, and Hyperscale LLM can be considered the brain. SKT’s AI capabilities combined with our collaboration with domestic and global partners will lead a true AI-native transformation for Korean customers and enterprises.”
- Transforming work culture around AI
CEO Chung emphasized, “To drive future growth, we must fundamentally reinvent the way we work. SKT will fundamentally transform our corporate culture with AI at the center.”
SKT has built an “AX (AI Transformation) Dashboard” that provides a comprehensive understanding of the AI usage status by department and individual, and is accelerating the introduction of AI across the organization. SKT also operates an “AI Board” to strengthen professional support for AX initiatives, and fosters a work environment and culture where employees can naturally incorporate AI into their daily work.
SKT has also built an “AI Playground” that allows employees to easily develop and use AI agents in their work without any coding. Currently, more than 2,000 AI agents are active in fields such as marketing, legal affairs, and PR.
CEO Chung said, “We will transform our organizational culture into an AI-native one by implementing company-wide AI skill improvement education and campaigns.Through SKT’s new transformation, we will do our best to restore customer trust and become a company that contributes to the nation and society.”
About SK Telecom
SK Telecom has been leading the growth of the mobile industry since 1984. Now, by extending beyond connectivity, we are taking the customer experience to new heights. By placing AI at the core of its business, SK Telecom is rapidly transforming into an AI company with a global presence. The company is focused on driving innovation in the areas of AI infrastructure, AI transformation (AIX), and AI services to deliver greater value to industry, society, and life.
For more information please contact us [email protected] Or visit our LinkedIn page www.linkedin.com/company/sk-telecom.
Source SK Telecom
