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SK Telecom Unveils A.X K1, Korea’s First Sovereign Hyperscale AI Model

The carrier casts the ~500‑billion‑parameter system as a teacher model to seed a domestic AI stack across chips, data centers, plus consumer services.

Overview

  • SK Telecom presented A.X K1 at the science ministry’s sovereign AI showcase at COEX, where five domestic teams unveiled foundation‑model progress.
  • Coverage places the model at roughly 500 billion parameters, with one report citing 519 billion, and SKT describes it as a teacher model for sub‑70B systems.
  • SKT plans consumer access through its Adot assistant for about 10 million users and positions the model for industrial trials across sectors including manufacturing, energy and semiconductors.
  • Supporting infrastructure includes the Haein GPU cluster in Gasan‑dong now online and a new Ulsan data center under construction that SKT says will be Korea’s largest of its kind.
  • Partners span SNU, KAIST, Rebellions, Krafton, Hyundai’s 42dot, Liner and SelectStar, with testing commitments from major institutions, while the government set a Jan. 15 evaluation that could eliminate the lowest‑ranked team.