SK Telecom's AI-Driven Core Network Strategy Unveiled at MWC 2026

At MWC 2026 in Barcelona, SK Telecom presented its bold transformation driven by artificial intelligence (AI), reshaping its entire operations—from the network core to customer service. This transition is much more than just introducing new AI tools; it involves complete rewrites of internal systems, expanding data center capacity beyond the gigawatt scale, and upgrading its proprietary large language model (LLM) to over one trillion parameters.

During the MWC 2026 press conference, CEO Jung Jai-hun articulated the company’s “AI Native” strategy, focusing on infrastructure reorganization and massive investment aimed at positioning South Korea among the top three global AI powers.

“SKT is currently at a golden time of transformation, where the two tasks of ‘customer value innovation’ and ‘AI innovation’ intersect in a borderless, converged environment that goes beyond telecommunications,” said Jung. “SKT defines ‘the customer as the very essence of our business,’ and through innovation driven by AI, we will evolve into a company that makes meaningful contributions to our customers and to Korea.”

Rebuilding Telecom Systems with AI Integration

Central to SK Telecom’s vision is a comprehensive rebuild of its integrated IT systems. The company plans to redesign sales, line management, and billing systems to be AI-optimized, enabling highly personalized plans and memberships tailored to individual usage and behavior patterns.

Security-wise, SK Telecom will implement a Zero Trust framework with enhanced authentication, granular access controls, network segmentation, and AI-powered continuous monitoring, reinforcing its commitment to robust cybersecurity.

This shift signals a major industry transformation as telecom operators traditionally rely on legacy systems. Embedding AI redefines pricing strategies, service design, fault detection, and raises important questions on data governance and ethical use of customer data in AI training.

The company is also expanding its autonomous network operations. Leveraging AI-RAN technologies, SK Telecom aims to automate wireless quality management, traffic routing, and network equipment maintenance — promising faster speeds and lower latency.

Unified AI Agent Revolutionizing Customer Interaction

SK Telecom is focusing on delivering seamless customer experiences by building an integrated AI agent that unifies interactions across the T world portal and online store T Direct Shop. This digital assistant analyzes daily usage to provide tailored recommendations and automates pricing, roaming, and membership services for greater simplicity.

Additionally, the AI-powered Contact Center will assist human agents during support calls, enhancing efficiency and service quality. Offline retail stores are also embracing AI tools to better understand customer needs and provide personalized offers.

Moreover, SK Telecom is developing “AI Personas” to analyze digital behavior patterns at the segment level and enable conversational Q&A, reflecting a major industry trend towards predictive rather than reactive service models.

Building Hyperscale 1GW AI Data Centers

SK Telecom’s AI infrastructure ambitions are enormous, targeting hyperscale data center capacity exceeding 1 gigawatt across Korea. The company seeks to establish South Korea as a premier AI data hub in Asia by attracting global investments.

The operator currently runs a GPU cluster named Haein and deploys the Petasus AI Cloud virtualization platform to offer GPU-as-a-service workloads. Plans are underway to expand this cloud offering internationally.

Significantly, SK Telecom announced a collaboration with OpenAI to develop an AI data center in Korea’s southwestern region, as disclosed at MWC 2026.

Regarding AI models, their sovereign foundation model has reached 519 billion parameters, the largest in Korea. The company aims to upgrade it beyond one trillion parameters with multimodal capabilities to process images, voice, and video data starting in the latter half of 2026.

“AIDC can be seen as the heart of Korea, and hyperscale LLMs as the brain,” said CEO Jung. “By combining SKT’s AI capabilities with collaboration from domestic and global partners, we will lead true AI-native transformation for Korean customers and enterprises.”

From an enterprise perspective, the focus is not just on sheer model scale but practical applications in industries like manufacturing. SK Telecom is working with SK hynix on an AI package that analyzes manufacturing process data in real time to lower defects and optimize equipment efficiency.

Transforming Corporate Culture Around AI

The AI-centric transformation reaches inside SK Telecom’s corporate culture as well. The company introduced an “AX Dashboard” to monitor AI deployment across departments, an AI Board to oversee governance, and an AI playground platform enabling employees to design AI agents without coding knowledge.

Already, over 2,000 AI agents are in use in functions such as marketing, legal, and PR. CEO Jung stressed,

“To drive future growth, we must reinvent our way of working from the ground up. SKT will fundamentally transform its corporate culture to be centred around AI.”

For enterprises globally, the lesson is clear: AI moves from a side project to the core operating model, integrating infrastructure, models, applications, and internal governance into a unified program.

Photo credit: PR Newswire

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