KT Corporation

Three consortiums led by SK Telecom, KT and Kakao plan to launch artificial intelligence services developed under the South Korean government's project in closed beta within October. Under the AI for All project, launched last July, the initiative aims to reduce reliance on foreign AI models and requires developers to use domestically developed AI models for at least 50% of the services they offer, while receiving government funding and GPU support. Initial developers are targeting 5 million monthly users, while Kakao aims to grow that to 10 million by 2027 and 30 million by 2030. The government also plans to inject an additional 250 billion won in budget starting next year, part of which will be used to procure around 2,000 GPUs. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and ICT said that about 23 million South Koreans have used generative AI models, with roughly 21 million using free basic-tier models.

GMI Cloud has raised $668 million in new financing, comprising $223 million in equity for its Series B round and a $445 million credit facility led by CTBC. The Series B was led by ARCHIV, a San Francisco investment firm specializing in AI and robotics, with participation from NVIDIA and Asia-Pacific investors including DSC Investment, Trend Micro, KB Investment, Kyobo Life and KT Corporation. The growth capital will fund capacity expansion in the United States, Taiwan and the rest of APAC, building on the company's Taiwan AI Factory and its Japan sovereign AI initiative, and will also support its inference services and strategic hiring. GMI Cloud said its contracted ARR has reached more than 9x its year-end 2025 level, while live ARR in production has grown more than 4.5x over the same period, and its inference platform now processes approximately 4 trillion tokens per week. Customers include Fireworks, Higgsfield, Nous Research, OpenRouter, Reflection, Cartesia, Trend Micro and Utopai Studios.

Samsung Electronics signed AI radio-network deals with KT and SK Telecom, even as its Seoul shares closed Monday down 5.43% at 270,000 won. The trials begin in October, with KT planning to test welding robots at a shipyard and SK Telecom testing patrol robots and video monitoring at a petrochemical site. Samsung is KT's sole global vendor and SK Telecom's main vendor for the projects, but the company disclosed no contract value, making the trials a proof point rather than a revenue forecast. Samsung's GF Score stands at 84 out of 100, showing strong growth and financial strength alongside a much weaker GF Value reading. Investors now need to see whether successful trials lead to repeat deployments and contracts large enough to matter.

South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced today that it has selected three private consortiums, led by SK Telecom, KT Corp, and Kakao Corp, to jointly develop artificial intelligence (AI) services accessible to all citizens under the "AI for All" project. Each consortium will receive a total of 512 Nvidia B200 graphics processing units (GPUs), and the government will fully fund the launch and operation of these services next year. The ministry plans to sign agreements with each consortium in September and aims to officially launch the services by the end of this year. The project, initiated in July, aims to drive the country toward an AI-based society, requiring developers to use domestic AI models for at least 50% of the system. A total of six consortiums applied for the competition.