SK Telecom (SKT) said Wednesday it will take part in "AI for All," a project led by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency aimed at making artificial intelligence (AI) tools accessible to the general public.

The company plans to draw on what it calls its "full-stack" AI capabilities — spanning its own AI models, infrastructure and services — for the initiative.

SKT operates the AI assistant app A. (pronounced "A dot"), which has about 10 million monthly users, and recently unveiled its own large language model, A.X K2, built with 688 billion parameters as part of the government's sovereign foundation model project.

The model is already being applied in manufacturing, defense and biotech, the company said. SKT also established SK Hyper last month, a subsidiary dedicated to AI data center development, and has said it plans to open 5 gigawatts of AI data center capacity in stages by 2029.

The company plans to leverage its roughly 22.5 million mobile subscriber lines and its online and offline retail channels to distribute the new AI services quickly.

SKT will first roll out an AI chatbot capable of conversation, search and summarization, document and image analysis, and schedule management, before expanding it into an AI agent that can carry out tasks such as finding and applying for public services, issuing certificates and handling bookings, applications and payments across areas including health care, transportation, finance and education.

The initiative involves a consortium of about 20 companies and institutions alongside SKT, including Liner, Shinhan Card, Hana Card, Tmap Mobility, SK Broadband, Persona AI, Elice Group, Goodoc, Soundable Health, Nota and Selectstar.

SKT said the company aims to ensure "AI usage gaps don't turn into social gaps" and that everyone can benefit from AI.

This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.