"We are collapsing as the No. 1 player in the industry. There is a sense of crisis that we will fail unless we fundamentally change. With our lost original resolve, we will return to being a customer-centered company. To do that, an AI transformation of our existing network and infrastructure must come first. We will boldly invest in the trillion-won range here."
Jung Jai-hun, president of SK Telecom, on the 1st (local time) held his first press briefing since taking office in Barcelona, Spain, where the world's largest mobile communications fair, MWC, is being held, and said, "A CEO is the person responsible for change." The day marked 123 days since Jung took office as CEO, and it was also his first official debut stage.
The change Jung describes is "customer value innovation" and the "AI transformation" to achieve it. "We are in a golden time when we must innovate customer value and adapt to the new value of AI," he said, adding, "AI is a 'crisis' for corporations—if you can't catch up, you fail." "This is truly a time to be tense and clearheaded," he said. "If we don't act now, we will spend more expense in the future," he added.
However, he said the amount to be invested in the AI transformation was not disclosed because it requires board approval. The plan is to complete the AI transformation in the T and network infrastructure institutional sector sequentially within three to five years.
Jung said last year's hacking incident provided an opportunity to realize that what had been taken for granted should no longer be seen as such. It was a time when they learned there is no growth without customers. "We had long declared we were customer-centered, but in hindsight there was no answer to 'what the company did to be customer-centered,'" he said. "We will return to the essence of the business," he said.
He initially sought to raise the value customers feel by offering AI-based services using SK Telecom's data. But a problem emerged. "Our IT systems and massive network infrastructure were designed before AI appeared and are not AI-friendly," Jung said. "The expense required for the AI transformation is enormous, but with the existing telecom infrastructure and systems, we can no longer remain No. 1." Jung added, "I believe overhauling the AI business system is the starting point for turning telecommunications from a sunset industry into a new innovative business."
SK Telecom plans to build all integrated systems—including sales operations, line management, and billing—around AI through the AI transformation to immediately reflect hyper-personalized customer needs. Based on this, it will redesign plans, memberships, and roaming. The company will convert operations—from wireless quality management, traffic control, and telecom equipment and facilities—from people-centered to AI-based autonomous structures to maximize customer-perceived quality. Jung emphasized that ways of working and corporate culture will also be completely reshaped around AI.
Jung expressed confidence about SK Telecom's AI business blueprint, saying, "We can boldly say we are a full-stack AI company." "We have invested for a long time and accumulated know-how in AI services, B2B (business-to-business transactions), and B2C (business-to-consumer transactions), so we can now confidently say we can build an AI business for Korea," he said.
SK Telecom will build more than 1 GW of hyperscale AI data center (DC) infrastructure across Korea. The company plans to create an "AI infrastructure belt" by building the GPU cluster Haein, the Ulsan AI DC in partnership with Amazon, and the southwestern-region AI DC in partnership with OpenAI.
SK Telecom is also participating in the government's national AI model development project and passed the first-stage evaluation. "Since we cannot invest as massively as big tech, we will identify demand in specialized areas where we can excel and create models suited to that demand," Jung said. "The foundation model under development is 500B or larger," he said. He added, "For AI agents, we aim for telecom-related AI agents, which is also where we are strong."
He concluded by saying the Sagrada Família Basilica, a famous landmark in Barcelona, represents the direction of beobgochangsin (learning from the old to create the new) that SK Telecom should pursue. "They say the largest central spire of the basilica was completed after 144 years," Jung said. "By adhering to a framework of principles defined by basics and rules, and having many people build through innovative change along the way, it became a structure that endures forever."