Tech Giants Partner on AI Data Centers
SK Telecom, Supermicro, and Schneider Electric have signed an MOU to collaborate on building total solutions for AI data centers. The partnership will leverage pre-fabricated modular designs to accelerate the deployment of the high-performance infrastructure needed to power AI-driven workflows in industries like insurance.
This collaboration assigns clear roles: SK Telecom provides AI data center (AIDC) operational expertise, Supermicro supplies the high-performance GPU servers, and Schneider Electric handles the critical mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) infrastructure design. The move to pre-fabricated modules is a direct response to the slow pace of traditional construction. Modular designs can compress campus-scale projects from 2-3 years down to 16-20 months, a time-to-market improvement of around 30-50% needed to keep up with surging AI demand. Powering AI models creates immense heat, with rack power densities now approaching 1 megawatt—far beyond what traditional air cooling can handle. This intense energy requirement is forcing a complete redesign of data center power and thermal management. The key enabling technology is advanced liquid cooling. Direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems, like those offered by Supermicro and Schneider Electric, are essential for the latest AI chips and can reduce data center energy costs by up to 40% compared to air cooling. For SK Telecom, this partnership is a component of a larger "AI Native" strategy. The company aims to develop over 1 gigawatt of hyperscale AI data center capacity, positioning South Korea as a major AI hub in Asia. This infrastructure is the foundation for AI adoption in the insurance sector. The computationally heavy workloads of automated claims processing, real-time fraud detection, and complex risk underwriting are what drive the need for these powerful, rapidly deployable AI data centers.
