Chey Says SK’s Mega Projects Aim to Drive Korea Growth as Group Expands AI Alliance With Nvidia

SK signs letter of intent with Nvidia for more than $500 billion of AI infrastructure cooperation

Pursues long-term AI memory supply partnership with Microsoft

SK Group is expanding AI infrastructure partnerships with global technology companies including Nvidia, Microsoft and Anthropic. The effort is aimed at accelerating its recently announced three mega projects while positioning South Korea as an AI infrastructure hub.

SK said July 25 that it had agreed to cooperate with Nvidia, Microsoft and Anthropic on AI infrastructure at the K-AI Summit held July 24 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. It also held a separate meeting with Amazon Web Services to discuss expanding AI infrastructure cooperation in South Korea, building on their partnership to jointly develop the Ulsan AI data center.

The centerpiece was its agreement with Nvidia. SK signed a letter of intent on July 24 for comprehensive cooperation with Nvidia to build more than $500 billion of AI infrastructure. The agreement spans AI factory construction and AI memory supply.

SK Telecom will receive Nvidia’s next-generation GPUs to build a 2-gigawatt AI factory, which SK described as the largest in South Korea. The plan gives more detail to the companies’ June agreement to develop a gigawatt-scale AI factory in the country. Based on Nvidia’s full-stack AI factory architecture, the DSX platform, SK plans to introduce Vera Rubin, a next-generation AI computing system equipped with SK hynix’s HBM4, and build the AI factory in phases starting in 2027.

SK hynix will supply AI memory to Nvidia under a long-term arrangement. The companies also plan to jointly develop and optimize next-generation AI memory including HBM to meet infrastructure demand ranging from large language model training to agentic AI and physical AI.

“South Korea has world-class networks, data centers and leadership in semiconductor technology,” Nvidia founder and Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said. “Together with SK Telecom and SK hynix, we will build a new generation of AI factories that will drive Korea’s next phase of growth.”

SK also expanded cooperation with other global technology companies. SK hynix agreed with Microsoft to pursue long-term memory supply cooperation and discussed supplying server memory optimized for AI workloads to data centers over the medium to long term.

SK Telecom also signed a broad memorandum of understanding with Anthropic on cooperation to build AI data centers in South Korea. With AWS, it agreed to expand the business to major domestic hubs based on their experience working together on the Ulsan AI data center.

Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, also met with OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman on July 24 to discuss the direction of long-term cooperation in AI infrastructure.

At the event, Chey laid out three strategies to make the mega projects succeed: building an AI-native nation, lowering AI costs and minimizing AI side effects. “The mega projects are for the growth of the Republic of Korea,” Chey said. “The scale of investment may feel unfamiliar because it is so large, but this is a realistic plan based on actual demand in the global AI market.” He said the group must quickly bring its capabilities together and ensure the projects succeed.

Song Jun-young, Hankyung.com reporter ssong@hankyung.com