A conceptual image of SK Telecom's government-backed "Hyper-AI Network Infrastructure" pilot project / Courtesy of SK Telecom
SK Telecom said it has been selected to carry out a government-backed "Hyper-AI Network Infrastructure" pilot project to build a next-generation "AI-RAN" network — which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize wireless base stations and run computing tasks on cellular hardware — and test three physical AI services under the initiative led by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Information Society Agency.
The two-year project supports Korea's "AI Highway" policy initiative, which aims to build ultra-low-latency, highly reliable networks for physical AI such as robots.
AI-RAN refers to networks in which cell towers provide AI computing power in addition to standard communication service, shifting some of a robot's AI processing load onto the network itself.
SK Telecom will build and test AI-RAN equipment from four manufacturers — Samsung Electronics, HFR, Ericsson and Nokia — within a single project, comparing performance across different computing configurations.
