SK Telecom launches new sovereign GPU cluster

SK Telecom launches new sovereign GPU cluster

SK Telecom said Tuesday it launched its Sovereign GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) platform on Friday, featuring the latest NVIDIA Blackwell B200 graphics processing units (GPUs).

The newly introduced GPUaaS cluster, Haein, connects more than 1,000 of NVIDIA’s B200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips in a single array, making it one of the largest and highest-performance GPUaaS in Korea. GPUaaS is a cloud-based service that provides GPU infrastructure for large-scale AI model training and reasoning.

The company said in a press release,

This marks a major upgrade over last December’s H100-based GPUaaS and is expected to significantly contribute to strengthening Korea’s AI infrastructure,

SK Telecom said Tuesday it launched its Sovereign GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) platform on Friday, featuring the latest NVIDIA Blackwell B200 graphics processing units (GPUs).

The newly introduced GPUaaS cluster, Haein, connects more than 1,000 of NVIDIA’s B200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips in a single array, making it one of the largest and highest-performance GPUaaS in Korea. GPUaaS is a cloud-based service that provides GPU infrastructure for large-scale AI model training and reasoning.

The company said in a press release,

This marks a major upgrade over last December’s H100-based GPUaaS and is expected to significantly contribute to strengthening Korea’s AI infrastructure,

“SK Telecom has built this B200 GPU cluster at Gasan AI data center (AIDC), aiming to resolve the GPU supply crunch in Korea and establish itself as a market leader in AIDC.”

Haein has been selected for the Ministry of Science and ICT’s project to rent GPUs and will be used in developing the country’s national AI foundation models.

To launch this GPUaaS, the company partnered with Penguin Solutions, a U.S.-based integrated AI data center solutions provider and one of NVIDIA’s top 10 certified partners. The two signed a $200 million investment agreement last year, which is the largest AI investment in SK Telecom’s history, and formed a joint task force to create GPUaaS services.

SK Telecom has also joined hands with a global AI server manufacturer, Supermicro, to secure and deploy GPU servers.

Kim Myoung Gook, head of SK Telecom’s GPUaaS business, said:

Haein’s GPUaaS will serve as a catalyst for enhancing both customer and national AI competitiveness,

“As an AI infrastructure provider, we are committed to building the nation’s AI superhighway.”

The company has been leveraging its technology for various projects, such as utilizing its virtualization solution, Petasus AI Cloud, for on-demand partitioning and reconfiguration of GPU clusters to customer demands.

It also provides an AI cloud manager, a solution backed by extensive expertise in large-scale model development, helping customers efficiently manage the entire AI service lifecycle from development and training to deployment.

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SK Telecom launches new sovereign GPU cluster, source