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SK Telecom has named Chung Suk-geun, the leader of its internal independent firm (CIC) focused on artificial intelligence (AI), as its new chief technology officer (CTO). This decision supports SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won’s focus on “AI sovereignty” and demonstrates the company’s restructuring around AI.

On the 2nd, SK Telecom revealed a personnel change, with Chung, head of the CIC, assuming the position of CTO simultaneously. This implies that Chung will be responsible for both current AI business activities and the company’s broader technology strategy and research and development (R&D).

The CTO of Chung, who previously served as the head of Naver Clova CIC, became part of SK Telecom a year ago. He is regarded as a crucial AI expert within the company, overseeing advancements in AI technology, international investments, and the establishment of fundamental infrastructure.

Chung’s current responsibility is the achievement of the “homegrown AI foundation model” initiative. SK Telecom introduced “A.X K1 (A.dot X K1),” the most extensive AI model in South Korea, featuring 519 billion parameters, during the initial assessment last year. Building upon this, the company has moved to the second stage and is getting ready to transition into a “multimodal” system that combines text, images, and video.

This staffing choice is viewed as strongly connected to Chairman Chey Tae-won’s plan to achieve “AI sovereignty.” In a video revealing the initial stage of the domestically developed AI foundational model, Chairman Chey explicitly mentioned, “Only by creating our own model using infrastructure we have built ourselves can we become a genuine AI leader.”