Jung Jaeheon (정재헌), CEO of SK Telecom, said the company's "full-stack artificial intelligence (AI)" strategy drew strong attention in global markets at "MWC 26" recently held in Barcelona, Spain.

In a contributed article to SKT Newsroom on March 13, Jung compared the MWC venue to the construction site of the Sagrada Familia basilica and relayed the remarks. The Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona recently finished work on its central spire.

He said, "Watching ICT leaders from around the world gather on the foundation of 'connectivity' built over a long time and engage in intense discussions on how to complete a massive era-defining structure called the AI cathedral, I kept thinking and thinking about what role SKT should play in the global AI ecosystem."

Jung stressed that telecoms carriers should go beyond being simple data pipes and become "AI infrastructure architects" that directly design and operate infrastructure. He said SKT presented a vision of an intelligence mobile network operator evolving with AI technology on the MWC stage, and drew various partnerships by positioning itself as a "full-stack AI provider" spanning AI data centre solutions, AI models and AI services.

SKT signed memorandums of understanding at this MWC with global server maker Supermicro and AI data centre solutions firm Schneider Electric. It unveiled a "sovereign AI package" with global telco partners including Singtel, e& and NTT.

He said the company's AI infrastructure capabilities were recognised, citing its GPU cluster "Haein" winning "Best Cloud Solution" at the GLOMO Awards and continued global interest in its proprietary AI foundation model "A.X K1" with 500 billion parameters.

He said, "The key theme I emphasised most at this MWC was 'change'," and stressed that the direction of change lies not in flashy technology but in "customers", the reason for a company's existence.

He added, "SKT will return to the essence of its business and innovate customer value again," and said it would define the great transition to AI not as a simple adoption of technology but as a transformation of the company's fundamental makeup.