• SK Telecom is focused on becoming a leader in the AI services sector
• It has teamed up with AI infrastructure specialist Lambda to deploy a cluster of Nvidia graphics processor units (GPUs) 
• SK Telecom will use the cluster to add GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) offerings to its enterprise services portfolio

Another day, another SK Telecom AI development! Hot on the heels of its AI chip unit merger news, the South Korean network operator has announced a partnership with San Francisco-based Lambda that will result in the deployment of a cluster of Nvidia graphics processor units (GPUs) and SK Telecom’s entry into the emerging GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) sector. 

SK Telecom, which prefers the moniker ‘AI company’ these days, has been developing multiple relationships with all manner of AI-related companies during the past couple of years and Lambda, which designs IT infrastructure based on graphics processing units (GPUs) for companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Intel, the US Department of Defense and Microsoft, is the latest. 

The two companies will team up to deploy a “large-scale Nvidia GPU cluster” before the end of this year in SK Broadband’s Gasan datacentre on the edge of Seoul “to support AI cloud business opportunities in South Korea.” 

SK Telecom “will launch AI cloud services, including GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), to enable enterprises to access GPU cloud services on an as-needed basis to develop or utilise AI services,” noted the telco in this announcement. 

Lambda CEO and co-founder Stephen Balaban noted that SK Telecom “shares in our vision to make GPU compute as ubiquitous as electricity. Given the rapid pace of innovation in AI happening in South Korea, we’re excited to partner with SKT and support [its] effort to grow and develop their AI cloud expertise in the region.” 

GPUaaS is a relatively new industry abbreviation you can expect to encounter regularly from here on – already this week Singtel announced it has teamed up with the 35 member-strong Bridge Alliance to bring the Singapore telco’s GPUaaS offerings to enterprises across Southeast Asia.   

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV