SK Group and NVIDIA have announced plans for a partnership exceeding $500 billion aimed at building AI infrastructure to meet surging global demand for compute.
The two companies signed Letters of Intent formalizing an agreement that spans everything from AI factory construction to AI memory supply, marking one of the largest infrastructure commitments either company has made in the region.
The announcement builds on a technology relationship between SK Group and NVIDIA that stretches back decades, including SK Telecom’s recently disclosed plans to build a 2-gigawatt-scale AI Cloud in Korea.
That facility will run on the NVIDIA DSX platform, using NVIDIA Vera Rubin accelerated computing paired with SK hynix HBM4 memory, with the first AI factory expected online in 2027.
DSX Architecture Anchors the Buildout
The cloud will be built on NVIDIA’s DSX full-stack AI factory architecture, which brings together NVIDIA’s accelerated computing hardware, systems, software and partner technologies with the goal of delivering the lowest token cost at maximum energy efficiency.
SK and NVIDIA are framing the effort as a way to accelerate large-scale AI infrastructure development — spanning sovereign, physical, agentic and enterprise AI services — while addressing rising AI demand across the Asia-Pacific region, including South Korea itself.
For SK Telecom specifically, the partnership accelerates its adoption of NVIDIA-powered infrastructure and widens customer access to advanced cloud services, while giving the company room to invest in and scale AI infrastructure that would otherwise be prohibitively capital-intensive for many customers to access on their own.
SK hynix Locks In a Long-Term Memory Deal
Separately, SK hynix is entering a long-term AI memory partnership with NVIDIA, building on the companies’ existing technical relationship. The agreement gives NVIDIA a stable, long-term supply of next-generation AI memory, while giving SK hynix a broader foundation for its own growth.
The two companies plan to co-develop and optimize next-generation AI memory solutions, including HBM, to keep pace with infrastructure demands ranging from large language model training to agentic and physical AI.
Executives Frame the Deal Around Korea’s AI Ambitions
Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, said South Korea has the ingredients to become a global AI powerhouse — citing its world-class networks and data centers, leadership in chip technology, and industrial scale. He said the partnership with SK Telecom and SK hynix is about building a new generation of AI factories that will drive Korea’s next wave of growth.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said competitiveness in the AI era depends not just on how effectively AI is used, but on how much intelligence a country or company can actually produce.
He said combining SK hynix’s AI memory capabilities with SK Telecom’s infrastructure expertise, alongside NVIDIA, will help build a world-class AI factory — one he hopes moves Korea beyond being a leading AI adopter and toward becoming a genuine hub for AI innovation.