South Korea is racing to build a national foundational AI model using mostly homegrown tech. The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) picked five consortia for the job. One is led by SK Telecom, teaming up with gaming company Krafton and chip startup Rebellions.
This push taps into South Korea’s key strengths—semiconductors, software, and cloud. SK Hynix and Samsung supply critical memory chips used worldwide. Rebellions is designing AI-specific chips. SK Telecom’s building AI data centers and will run training on its Titan supercomputer, powered by Nvidia GPUs, plus cloud infrastructure with Amazon.
SK Telecom’s AI chief Kim Taeyoon says the AI stack could rival global leaders and the first model launch is planned by year-end. It’ll be open-source and aimed first at South Korea but with potential global reach. 
“We are going through an important juncture in terms of our technological development. So Korea, at the national level, is focusing on ensuring that we lay the technical foundation to have our competitiveness,” Kim Taeyoon stated.
“Korea has many entities that would excel at creating a big AI industry. And we could clearly see the possibility that we are very capable of creating a good AI stack.”
SK Telecom already has experience in AI with its “A.” chatbot family. The real challenge now is matching the scale and impact of models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Chinese firms like Alibaba and DeepSeek.
The open-source angle could help get local developers on board and attract global users. South Korea aims for AI sovereignty—control over tech critical to sectors like healthcare, defense, and finance.
“All major nations are increasingly concerned about AI sovereignty as the US and China vie for AI dominance,” said Nick Patience from The Futurum Group.
“Given AI’s growing influence on critical sectors like healthcare, finance, defense, and government, countries cannot afford to cede control of their digital intelligence to foreign entities.”
If successful, South Korea’s sovereign AI models could become sought-after alternatives to U.S. and Chinese systems, boosting exports and tech influence. The project banks on the country’s entire AI stack—from chips to cloud to models—and strong domestic research.
Expect the first SK Telecom-led AI model by end of 2024, open-source and battle-ready against the world’s top AI players.
