(Lee Seung-hwan)

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The chief executive officers (CEOs) of South Korea’s three major telecom companies - SK telecom Co., KT Corp., and LG Uplus Corp. - have announced their goal to make 2025 the inaugural year for monetizing artificial intelligence (AI).

Following years of preparation, they plan to leverage AI to drive revenue growth in both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sectors.

In his New Year’s address, Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SK telecom, emphasized that AI innovation combined with telecommunications will offer new opportunities while intensifying competition in AI technology and investment.

He declared that AI would lead to substantial revenue growth, while outlining three priorities for 2025 - maximizing core competitiveness, achieving visible AI results, and fostering a flexible corporate culture. Ryu also highlighted initiatives like the synergy between SK telecom, SK broadband, and SK C&C, as well as the global AI agent Aster.

SK telecom also plans to focus on building an AI Infrastructure Superhighway, including AI data centers and GPU cloud services.

KT CEO Kim Young-shub stated in his address that the company will expedite its transition into an AI Information Communication Technology (AICT), leveraging its partnership with Microsoft.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, Kim designated 2025 as the year for KT’s AICT transformation. The company aims to deliver significant B2B business results, including the launch of a Korean GPT-4 based AI model and industry-specific small language models for public and financial sectors in the first half of 2025.

Kim also emphasized diversifying KT’s portfolio by innovating its media business into a core pillar alongside telecommunications and IT.

For his part, LG Uplus CEO Hong Bum-sik outlined a vision for growth through AI transformation and customer collaboration.

He stressed the importance of creating a structural competitive edge by building an AI Experience ecosystem, saying that “delivering hyper-personalized customer experiences is critical as AI technologies become ubiquitous.”

Hong added that delivering hyper-personalized customer experiences is critical as AI technologies become ubiquitous, while also highlighting the need to collaborate with AI technology holders, platform companies, and other partners to establish barriers competitors cannot penetrate.