SK has secured a foundation to carry out its domestic AI infrastructure investment plans through cooperation with U.S. big tech companies. SK said on July 25 it agreed with Nvidia, Microsoft and Anthropic on cooperation in AI infrastructure areas such as AI chips and AI data centres at the K-AI Summit held on July 24 local time at the Fairmont San Francisco. It discussed ways to expand domestic AI infrastructure cooperation with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in a separate meeting.

The scale of cooperation with Nvidia is more than 500 billion dollars. SK Group decided to pursue broad cooperation spanning everything from building an AI factory to supplying AI memory, and signed a letter of intent on the day. SK Telecom will receive next-generation GPUs and also pursue investment cooperation to build an AI factory of up to 2 gigawatts in South Korea. This is the result of detailing the plan agreed in June to build a gigawatt-class AI factory.

SK Telecom will introduce the next-generation AI computing system, Vera Rubin, based on Nvidia's full-stack AI factory architecture platform, DSX. It will be equipped with SK hynix's high-performance HBM4 memory, which stacks multiple layers of memory to increase data processing speed. Construction and operations will take place in stages from 2027. The company explained that its strategy is to develop large-scale AI infrastructure, including enterprise AI services, and jointly respond to rising AI demand in South Korea and the Asia-Pacific region.

SK hynix will pursue long-term cooperation with Nvidia on AI memory. It is a follow-up measure to the long-term technology partnership previously signed. Nvidia will receive stable supplies of next-generation AI memory, and SK hynix will broaden the growth base of its AI memory business. The two companies will jointly develop next-generation AI memory such as HBM in line with rapidly growing infrastructure demand, including for training large language models. SK hynix also decided to pursue cooperation with Microsoft to supply server memory tailored for AI work to data centres over the medium to long term.

SK Telecom signed a comprehensive memorandum of understanding with Anthropic to build a gigawatt-class AI data centre in South Korea. Anthropic will participate in SK Telecom's AI data centre construction project under way in South Korea. The cooperation, which began with SK Telecom's strategic investment in 2023, will continue as a long-term partnership. With AWS, SK will expand business to major domestic hubs based on a partnership built through jointly constructing the Ulsan AI data centre, and secure gigawatt-class AI computing capacity in the long term.

SK Chairman Chey Tae-won (최태원) also met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on the day to discuss the direction for long-term cooperation in AI infrastructure. SK and OpenAI signed a partnership in October last year on memory supply and the establishment and operation of an AI data centre in the southwest region. An SK official said expanded cooperation with global big tech companies such as Nvidia is an example that once again confirms AI infrastructure demand, including for AI memory, is expanding rapidly. The official said the cooperation is expected to add momentum to the government's recently announced "mega project".

SK said at the "National Report Meeting on Three Mega Projects" in June that it plans to build AI data centres nationwide and create a semiconductor belt. The big tech cooperation further strengthened the foundation for implementation. Chey presented tasks including building an "AI-native nation" in which every citizen uses at least one AI agent, reducing token costs by expanding memory production and AI data centres, and minimizing side effects through establishing AI governance and creating jobs, at the event attended by President Lee Jae-myung and global big tech chiefs.