SK Telecom has announced plans to enter the global artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure market. The company aims to strengthen and grow its infrastructure business, which is now a key part of the AI era.
It plans to build advanced data centers not just in South Korea but also in Southeast Asia, which is quickly becoming a major hub for AI development.
SK Telecom CEO Jeong Jae-heon, speaking as a keynote speaker at SK Group’s annual tech conference SK AI Summit 2025 held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on Nov. 3, stated, “We will enter the overseas AI data center market in conjunction with the group’s global business.” He added, “We are currently pursuing the construction of an AI data center based on energy and information technology (IT) with SK Innovation in Vietnam.” He further explained, “We will develop eco-friendly and highly efficient solutions utilizing (SK Innovation’s) LNG power plant cold energy technology,” and “We plan to build AI data centers in Malaysia and Singapore as well.”
Southeast Asia is emerging as a global AI data center hub due to its possession of big tech companies like Google and Microsoft’s Asian business bases, high demand based on a population of 670 million and relatively low costs for land, water, and electricity. It appears that SK Telecom has also set this region as its first target for overseas expansion. CEO Jeong said, “To prepare for overseas expansion, we will first strengthen our domestic business base,” and added, “The Ulsan AI data center being built with Amazon Web Services (AWS) will be expanded from the current 100MW (megawatt) class to 1GW (gigawatt, 1000MW) in the long term, making us the number one AI data center developer in Asia.”
SK Telecom recently announced plans to build a special AI data center with OpenAI in the southwestern region of Korea. The company also plans to develop a large new facility in Guro-gu, Seoul — the last available Site in the city’s metropolitan area — showing its strong focus on the infrastructure business.
Jeong, who took office on October 30 and made his first official appearance, highlighted the company’s vision and commitment to expanding its AI-related businesses.
He also plans to lead the edge AI business, which includes AI-RAN (AI-powered base stations), a project SK Telecom is developing together with NVIDIA and Samsung Electronics.
Edge AI is gaining attention as a key infrastructure for next-generation AI services such as autonomous vehicles, as it enables immediate data processing close to users, unlike large-scale data centers that act as central servers, such as communication base stations or small-scale AI data centers. Jeong said, “We have established mid to long-term cooperation with AWS for edge AI R&D,” and added, “We will focus on securing capabilities by combining technologies from both companies.”
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