{"id":9612,"date":"2026-05-08T23:49:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T23:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/9612\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T23:49:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T23:49:58","slug":"sk-telecom-ai-data-center-revenue-jumps-89-in-q1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/9612\/","title":{"rendered":"SK Telecom AI Data Center Revenue Jumps 89% in Q1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"<\/p>\n

SK Telecom reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of 4.4 trillion won (US$2.99 billion), supported by recovering wireless sales and rapid expansion in its AI data center business.<\/p>\n

Compared with a year earlier, revenue declined 1.4%, operating income fell 5.3%, and net income dropped 12.5%.<\/p>\n

However, handset subscribers increased by 210,000, while mobile service revenue rose 1.7% from the previous quarter, signaling improving telecom demand.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s standout growth came from its AI data center (AIDC) segment, which generated 131.4 billion won (US$89.4 million) in revenue, up 89.3% year on year. SK Telecom linked the rise to stronger data center utilization and growing demand for GPU-as-a-service offerings.<\/p>\n

Key Highlights<\/p>\n

\tSK Telecom\u2019s AI data center revenue surged 89.3% year on year in Q1 2026\tThe company plans 1GW-scale hyperscale AI infrastructure across South Korea\tSK Telecom is expanding globally with sovereign AI, GPU cloud services, and AI standards leadership<\/p>\n

Also Read:\u00a0SK Telecom & Panmnesia Ink MOU to Redefine AI Data Center Architecture<\/a><\/p>\n

The growth aligns with SK Telecom\u2019s broader \u201cAI Native\u201d strategy, introduced at MWC26, where the company outlined plans for 1-gigawatt-scale hyperscale AI data center capacity across South Korea.<\/p>\n

It is also working with OpenAI on a planned AI data center in southwest Korea. Additionally, SK Telecom aims to build a sovereign AI foundation model exceeding 1 trillion parameters.<\/p>\n

The company is collaborating through the Global Telco AI Alliance (GTAA) alongside Deutsche Telekom, e&, Singtel, and SoftBank to develop telecom-specific AI models using pooled industry data. GTAA members collectively serve 1.3 billion subscribers across 50 countries.<\/p>\n

Beyond connectivity, SK Telecom is positioning itself as an AI infrastructure<\/a> provider through technologies like the Haein GPU cluster and Petasus AI Cloud virtualization platform, which it plans to market globally.<\/p>\n

Also Read:\u00a0SK Telecom Backs 15 AI & ESG Startups at MWC26<\/a><\/p>\n

The company is also exploring AI data center projects in Vietnam tied to LNG power infrastructure and recently secured ITU-T international standard approval for its AI data center interconnection architecture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SK Telecom reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of 4.4 trillion won (US$2.99 billion), supported by recovering wireless sales and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[7343,544,1366,253,7336,7338,7342,7337,7344,7339,6226,7341,241,240,1364,7345,4224,7340],"class_list":["post-9612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk","tag-ai-cloud","tag-ai-data-center","tag-ai-infrastructure","tag-asia-business-outlook","tag-gpu-as-a-service","tag-gtaa","tag-haein-gpu-cluster","tag-hyperscale-ai","tag-itu-t","tag-mwc26","tag-openai","tag-petasus-ai-cloud","tag-sk","tag-sk-group","tag-sk-telecom","tag-south-korea-telecom","tag-sovereign-ai","tag-telecom-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}