"SK Telecom Elite Team Unveils Korea's First 500B-Scale AI Model 'A.X K1', Set to Transform the Nation's AI Landscape"

[Financial News] SK Telecom announced on the 28th that it will unveil 'A.X K1', Korea's first ultra-large artificial intelligence (AI) model with 500 billion parameters, at the initial presentation of its proprietary AI foundation model project. The event, hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), will take place on the 30th. Five consortia, including the SKT Consortium, LG AI Research, NAVER Cloud, NC AI, and Upstage, will present their development achievements. Based on these presentations, MSIT will select four consortia in January, and after biannual evaluations, only two teams will remain by 2027.
■ Expansion of AI for Both Consumer and Enterprise ApplicationsAccording to SK Telecom, A.X K1 consists of 519 billion parameters, with about 33 billion parameters activated during complex inference tasks. Unlike other English-based AI foundation models, A.X K1 was designed from the outset to be trained in Korean, making it highly proficient in understanding the language. This ultra-large model can also serve as a 'teacher model' to supply knowledge to foundation models with 70 billion parameters or fewer. It is expected to act as digital social infrastructure supporting the AI ecosystem. The SK Telecom elite team plans to expand research so that A.X K1 can transfer knowledge to various small and specialized models, aiming to utilize it as a model that innovates both daily life and Korean industry.
The SK Telecom elite team also intends to enhance nationwide AI accessibility by providing A.X K1 through A., which has over 10 million subscribers. This will help create an 'AI for All' environment, enabling everyone to easily use AI via phone, text, web, and apps.
To strengthen industrial competitiveness through AI transformation, SK Telecom will expand the application of A.X K1 to areas such as A. Biz for improving work productivity, manufacturing AI solutions for optimizing production processes, real-time character interaction and autonomous behavior in games via Krafton's game AI, and humanoid robot technology that extends AI models into the physical and behavioral domains.
A.X K1 is also expected to serve as a testbed for verifying the competitive edge of Korea's semiconductor industry. Since AI semiconductor development requires massive data volumes and high data transfer speeds for performance validation, ultra-large LLM models like A.X K1 can be efficiently utilized for testing next-generation AI semiconductors.■ Completing the AI Value Chain through Collaboration with SK hynix and Other Key Affiliates, Academia, and IndustryThe SK Telecom elite team is composed of eight organizations: SK Telecom, Krafton, 42dot, Rebellions, Liner, Select Star, Seoul National University (SNU), and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Together, they have established a 'full-stack sovereign AI' by independently developing the entire AI value chain, from AI semiconductors and data centers to models and services.
The A.X K1 model is expected to go beyond a mere technological achievement, being applied and expanded primarily by SK Group and consortium participants, and having a significant ripple effect across Korean industry. Over 20 organizations, including SK hynix, SK Innovation, SK Inc. AX, SK Broadband, CHEY Institute for Advanced Studies, and Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS), have submitted letters of intent to participate, agreeing to collaborate on real-world application and validation.
The SK Telecom elite team also plans to open source A.X K1 to various companies within Korea's AI ecosystem. Through major developer communities and SK Telecom services, the model and its APIs will be made available as open source, providing a development environment for domestic companies to build AI agents.
Additionally, the team will establish an integrated support system for AI model development and release portions of the training data used in model development on public and private platforms, thereby contributing to the overall competitiveness of Korea's AI ecosystem.
Tae Yoon Kim, head of foundation models at SK Telecom, stated, "With the development of Korea's first 500B-parameter model, we have created a new turning point for Korea to join the global top three in AI amid fierce international competition. As a national AI leader, we will continue our efforts to realize AI for everyone."

kaya@fnnews.com Choi Hye-rim Reporter