SK Telecom, which failed to be selected as an operator for a government-led project to develop a cyber security-focused AI foundation model, will continue to strengthen its own AI capabilities.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said on Wednesday it selected the Naver Cloud consortium as the final operator after conducting a presentation evaluation of two consortia, including Naver Cloud and SKT.

SKT applied for the project as part of a consortium that included Upstage, nine domestic security companies including SK Shieldus, Secui, AhnLab, Igloo Corporation, RaonSecure, SmartM2M, AIM Intelligence, Genian and Piolink, and 13 organisations in total including Korea University, Soongsil University and the Korea Information Security Industry Association (KISIA).

SKT said it will continue to secure cyber security AI capabilities separately from the project. SKT said, "Separately from the government project, we will discuss ways to cooperate in the future with the organisations participating in the consortium," and added, "We will continue to secure cyber security AI capabilities."

It added, "As a full-stack AI business operator equipped with AI infrastructure, models and services, we will continue to strive to help raise South Korea's AI competitiveness."