SK Group teams up with AWS for Korea's largest W7tr AI data center

Set to launch in 2027, the mega project marks the largest corporate investment since President Lee Jae Myung took office

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won delivers a welcome speech at the inauguration ceremony of the Ulsan artificial Intelligence data center on Friday. (Joint Press Corps)

SK Group said Sunday it has signed a partnership agreement with Amazon Web Services to expand cloud infrastructure in Korea by jointly building an artificial intelligence data center in Ulsan.

SK plans to invest 7 trillion won ($5.1 billion), including $4 billion raised through investment from AWS. It is scheduled to begin operations by 2027 and generate up to 78,000 direct and indirect jobs as operations expand.

Once completed, the facility will be Korea's largest AI infrastructure, powered by 60,000 graphics processing units and with a power capacity of 103 megawatts.

SK will lead the construction of the data center while AWS will establish a new AI zone in Ulsan, delivering a broad selection of AWS’ leading AI and cloud capabilities to customers in Korea.

Ulsan is considered the optimal location for the establishment of the AI zone, as SK possesses a stable gas supply network, advanced energy solutions and ideal sites in the region. Additionally, the city offers a favorable environment for submarine cables and is highly supportive of industrial activities.

The AI zone will combine industry-leading capabilities from the two companies through a 15-year partnership to provide top-tier network operations, a semiconductor supply chain and efficient power infrastructure. The partnership is in addition to AWS’ long-term $5.88 billion planned investment in Korea through 2027.

“When SK Group's exceptional technical capabilities combine with AWS' comprehensive AI cloud services, we'll empower customers of all sizes, across all industries here in Korea to build and innovate with safe, secure AI technologies,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of infrastructure services at AWS. “This partnership represents our commitment to Korea's AI future, and I couldn't be more excited about what we'll achieve together.”

SK and AWS are expanding their strategic partnership to pursue wide-ranging collaborations that will benefit customers, giving them the ability to meet the growing demand for generative AI with compute, storage, database and edge computing capabilities.

The new cloud infrastructure is a part of the AI Infrastructure Superhighway strategy announced last year by SK Telecom, which is involved in AI initiatives within the Group.

SK expects to establish a key hub for hyperscale AI infrastructure through the superhighway project. It plans to enhance data sovereignty and strengthen its global competitiveness in AI by processing AI workloads generated in Korea directly within the country.

“We are pleased to combine the technological capabilities of SK Group with AWS, the world’s leading cloud provider, to establish a core infrastructure for a Korean AI ecosystem and create a powerful new engine for 'AI highway,'" said Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group.

SK and AWS held a signing ceremony to launch a project to build an AI data center on Friday in Ulsan with President Lee Jae Myung in attendance. Lee vowed full-scale support for AI to create a new growth engine.

“The new government will make every effort to actively support Korea in adopting AI as a new national growth engine so that the country can once again leap forward as a dynamic, growing nation,” the president said.