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The investment is the latest step in SK Telcom (SKT)’s path to becoming global leader in AI
South Korean telco SKT has announced that it will invest $200 million in California-based Smart Global Holdings (SGH), an AI data centre solutions company.
Under the terms of the agreement, SKT will invest $200 million in SGH by acquiring 200,000 preferred shares, worth $32.81 each. This will equate to a roughly 10% stake in the business.
SGH will use the capital to “add to the Company’s financial flexibility as SGH further expands the scope and scale of its Penguin Solutions branded end-to-end AI factory offerings,” as stated in the announcement’s press release.
The company’s Penguin Solutions designs, builds, deploys, and manages AI and accelerated computing infrastructures at scale using Nvidia Graphic Processing Units (GPUs).
“SGH and Penguin Solutions have a proven methodology to deploy their AI infrastructure solutions at some of the most innovative and demanding large-scale enterprise customers in the world. We believe that this collaboration leveraging SKT’s vast technology portfolio with Penguin’s AI data center solutions would enhance the reach and capabilities of both companies and position them to continue innovating in their fields,” said Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SKT.
Leveraging the strengths of both companies, the partnership will “enhance customer offerings in the development of differentiated global end-to-end AI factory and data center solutions and services, advanced memory market products and services, and NPU-based AI edge servers.”
SKT has made significant investments in the last few years to “step up on all fronts to transform itself into an AI company,” said the company’s Chief Financial Officer Kim Jin Won. Last month, for example, the company invested $10 million in a generative AI search engine called Perplexity, which is attempting to disrupt Google’s hegemony over the search engine industry. It has also invested $100 million in AI company Anthropic, to develop a multilingual large language model (LLM) customised for global telcos.
Last year, the company also joined forces with e&, Deutsche Telekom, and Singtel to form the Global Telco AI Alliance, aiming to explore the greater integration of AI technologies within the telecoms sector.
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