SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said Friday that the group’s cooperation with Big Tech companies on artificial intelligence data centers was advancing rapidly.
“The data center plan has been in the works for less than a year, but progress has been quite fast,” Chey said at the 2026 Ulsan Forum at the Ulsan Exhibition and Convention Center, adding that both he and other SK officials have continued meeting with Big Tech companies.
SK is building an AI data center in Ulsan with Amazon Web Services, with operations scheduled to begin by the end of 2027. The 7 trillion won ($5.1 billion) project is the first under the Korean group’s plan to develop 15 gigawatts of AI infrastructure across Korea.
Chey said the Ulsan facility had secured nearly 900 megawatts of capacity. SK Innovation is also developing electrification solutions for AI data centers and working with partners on investment plans to expand the business, he added.
At the forum, Chey said the next challenge for the AI industry was to build business models that can generate profits and sustain further investment.
He has long cited speed, scale and safety as three key requirements for AI competitiveness, but said business models and sustainability must now be added to the equation.
“There are concerns that AI could turn into a bubble if companies keep pouring in resources without seeing meaningful returns,” Chey said. “What ultimately matters is building a sustainable model in which AI generates profits that can be reinvested.”
Chey also stressed the need for large-scale data platforms to advance manufacturing AI, saying the chances of successful adoption increase as the scale of available data grows.
“This is not an issue for Ulsan alone. It is a challenge for Korea as a whole,” he said.
Chey also pointed to energy as an area where Korea and Japan could deepen cooperation. The two countries could cut costs and bolster energy security through joint purchasing, storage and use, with cooperation eventually expanding to renewable energy, hydrogen and nuclear power, he said.
yeeun@heraldcorp.com
