SK Telecom Rolls Out 'Sovereign AI' Strategy
At MWC Barcelona, SK Telecom expanded its global AI partnerships and introduced a 'Sovereign AI Package' strategy. The offering combines AI infrastructure, proprietary models, and services, positioning telcos as key players in national AI development.
The 'Sovereign AI' concept centers on a nation or entity's independent control over its AI systems, data, and infrastructure, keeping them within defined legal and geographical boundaries. This approach ensures compliance with local regulations like GDPR, enhances security, and allows AI to be tailored to specific cultural and organizational values. For telcos, this represents a strategic shift from being data conduits to shaping national AI ecosystems. SK Telecom's proprietary foundation model, A.X K1, is a core component of its offering. Currently the largest in Korea with 519 billion parameters, SKT plans to upgrade it to over one trillion parameters and add multimodal capabilities for processing image, voice, and video. This model is part of Korea's government-led Sovereign AI Foundation Model Project, positioning it as a key national asset. The strategy includes a massive infrastructure build-out, with plans for hyperscale AI data centers (AIDCs) in Korea targeted to exceed 1 gigawatt of capacity. SKT is leveraging its Haein GPU cluster, which utilizes NVIDIA's latest Blackwell GPUs, and its proprietary 'Petasus AI Cloud' virtualization solution to offer GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS). The company is also collaborating with OpenAI on an AIDC in the southwestern region of Korea. This initiative is underpinned by a coalition of global telecommunications giants. SKT is actively collaborating with Singtel, e&, NTT, Orange, and its long-standing European partner Deutsche Telekom to jointly develop trusted AI infrastructure and services. These partnerships aim to link AI efforts across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, creating a powerful global alliance. In Turkey, the AI startup scene is rapidly expanding, with 1,188 active startups, approximately 70% of which were founded after 2020. While the ecosystem is early-stage, with a median investment of around $100,000 for domestic startups, 180 Turkish AI startups received early-stage funding in 2024 and 2025. The Turkish government is also prioritizing AI as a "breakthrough technology" for national self-sufficiency, particularly in the defense sector. Turkey's deeptech sector, however, faces challenges in commercializing university research and accessing venture capital, with only 6% of total VC investments in 2023 directed towards it. Most domestic VC funds are geared towards software-based SaaS ventures, creating a gap for capital-intensive deeptech startups. Despite this, incubators and accelerators, often linked to universities and technoparks, are increasingly supporting the commercialization of deeptech innovations. The Turkish government has signaled a strong commitment to building a sovereign AI capability, restructuring its Ministry of Industry and Technology to create a National Technology and Artificial Intelligence General Directorate. This body is tasked with centralizing AI policy, developing a sovereign national cloud, and creating a "Public Data Space" to keep sensitive data within its borders. This aligns with a broader strategy to use AI for defense modernization and to ensure the state's operational capacity.
