SK Telecom to build 'GPU farm' with thousands of NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs, rented for AI workloads

South Korean telecommunications giant SK Telecom has announced its partnering with US-based GPU cloud startup Lambda on a new GPU farm using NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs.

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The GPU farm filled with NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs will be owned by Lambda, and installed into the SK Broadband data center in Gasan-dong, Guro-gu, Seoul, by December this year. The new partnership on the GPU farm in South Korea is part of SKT's broader plan to expand its AI data center business reports Business Korea.

SKT plans to scale the number of AI GPUs to thousands in the next 3 years, with SK Broadband being a subsidiary of SKT, and will play a "crucial role" in this venture by providing optimized equipment management services to ensure the stable operation of the GPU servers.

Kim Kyung-duk, head of SKT's Enterprise Business Division, said: "Securing GPUs stably through strategic cooperation with Lambda is significant in terms of expanding the domestic GPU supply".

Stephen Balaban, CEO of Lambda, said: "Given the rapid pace of innovation in AI happening in South Korea, we're excited to partner with SK Telecom and support their effort to grow and develop their AI cloud expertise in the region. Lambda and SKT share a vision of creating an environment where GPU computing resources can be used as conveniently as electricity. We are pleased to collaborate with SKT to grow the AI cloud sector in Korea, where the pace of AI innovation is rapid".

Business Korea reports that based on Lambda's resources, SKT will be launching a subscription-based AI cloud service (GPUaaS or GPU as a Service) in December. This new GPU farm and its servers will allow corporate customers to rent GPUs through the cloud, versus purchasing them directly (up front costs are huge).

This model will be great for domestic startups in South Korea, through to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), enabling them to access high-performance AI servers, without the huge upfront costs of the latest AI GPUs.

Kim Kyeong-deog, vice president and head of enterprise business division at SK Telecom, said: "We will build Korea's largest GPU farm to enhance national AI competitiveness and position ourselves as a gateway to the global market".