SK Group has announced its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to expand cloud infrastructure in South Korea. SK Group, in partnership with AWS, will build a data center in Ulsan, South Korea for a new AWS AI Zone that will help organizations in South Korea build innovative and new AI applications locally while leveraging the full breadth of AWS capabilities.
The AI Zone will bring together multiple innovative capabilities, including dedicated AWS AI infrastructure and servers with world-class semiconductors, UltraCluster networks for faster AI training and inference, AWS services like Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock, and AI application services such as Amazon Q to advance Korea’s mission to be a world leader in AI.
On June 20, SK Group and AWS held a signing ceremony for the establishment of the AI Zone in Ulsan, where both parties pledged cooperation for the successful launch of the project. Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group; Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom; Prasad Kalyanaraman, Vice President of Infrastructure Services at AWS; Jaime Valles, Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific and Japan at AWS; and Ham Kee-ho, Country Managing Director of Korea at AWS attended the signing ceremony.
The data center in Ulsan is scheduled to begin operations by 2027 and is expected to generate up to 78,000 direct and indirect jobs over time as the data center scales and operations expand. The AI Zone in Ulsan will combine industry-leading capabilities from SK Group and AWS through a 15-year partnership to provide top-tier network operations, a semiconductor supply chain, and efficient power infrastructure. This partnership is in addition to AWS’s long-term US $5.88 billion (approx. 7.85 trillion won) planned investment in Korea by 2027.
