SK's 'New Icheon Forum' puts Chey Tae-won's AI blueprint in spotlight

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won's intensive series of meetings with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — spanning Taiwan and South Korea from last week through this week — has prompted assessments that the two companies' partnership has moved to a new level. In practice, their AI cooperation is diversifying well beyond semiconductors into infrastructure areas including cloud and factory operations.

Amid that backdrop, SK's "2026 New Icheon Forum," opening Thursday, is expected to serve as the venue where the group maps out how to advance its AI-related projects in concrete terms. Observers also anticipate that Chey will use the forum to lay out a new vision and blueprint for the group's AI business.

Particularly notable is whether the forum will mark a shift in SK's overall management strategy. The group has been pushing an intensive rebalancing — a sweeping restructuring of its business portfolio — and that effort is now seen as entering its final stages, raising the question of whether SK will pivot toward aggressively expanding its AI ecosystem footprint.

SK Group announced Wednesday that it will hold the "2026 New Icheon Forum" over two nights and three days, from Thursday through Saturday, at the SKMS Research Institute in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, under the theme "Disruptive innovation driven by AI: a full transformation toward AX-centered management."

The New Icheon Forum merges two previously separate events — the Management Strategy Conference, held each June for senior executives to discuss group strategy, and the Icheon Forum, held each August as a broader employee discussion platform. This year marks the first time the two have been combined.

The decision stems from a sense of acute urgency: that failing to keep pace with AI's development could threaten the group's future survival. With AI technology cycles growing extremely short, SK concluded that its existing discussion structure was too rigid for agile responses. The merged format is designed to foster closer communication between management and employees and to translate decisions into action more quickly. SK Group plans to hold the New Icheon Forum every June going forward.

About 50 executives will attend, including Chairman Chey, Vice Chairman Chey Jae-won, Supex Council Chairman Chey Chang-won, and the CEOs of major affiliates. AI acceleration is by far the central theme. The forum opens with an intensive first-day session in which executives lay the groundwork for AI-related discussions. They will share AX targets and roadmaps across major affiliates, examine ways to sharpen AI innovation execution through a CEO panel discussion, and address the rationale and direction of AX tailored to each affiliate's circumstances.

On the second day, employees take the floor to speak directly about AX. Building on the executives' discussions, participants will share how they are experiencing AI-era change on the ground, explore ways to overcome obstacles encountered during AX implementation, and discuss how to upgrade organizational operating frameworks. On the final day, executives present each affiliate's AX action plans and reaffirm the group's commitment to accelerating AX across the board. "We will accelerate the full transformation toward AX-centered management, grounded in shared understanding with our employees," an SK official said.

The forum opens on the heels of an unusually intense stretch of high-profile meetings between Chairman Chey and key players in the global semiconductor industry, drawing considerable attention inside and outside the group. Chey attended Computex 2026 in Taiwan earlier this month, where he met in succession with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, TSMC Chairman Wei Che-chia, and other heavyweights in the AI and semiconductor sector to pursue cooperation aimed at strengthening the AI semiconductor ecosystem.

With Huang subsequently visiting South Korea, the two executives met separately twice at Computex before sharing a samgyeopsal dinner on Saturday, a chimaek — fried chicken and beer — gathering on Monday, and then jointly announcing plans to expand AI infrastructure cooperation on Tuesday. At a second informal gathering in Seoul's Gangnam district on Monday evening, Huang publicly shouted "More HBM!" before a crowd, formally signaling that demand for SK Hynix products remains strong.

At the Nikkei Forum's "Korea-Japan Special Session" held at the Imperial Hotel Tokyo on Tuesday, Chey also weighed in on AI, saying that amid the technology rivalry between the United States and China, "Korea and Japan need to secure economies of scale and negotiating leverage." He added that "through data sharing, joint infrastructure development, and the standardization of norms, we can build independent competitiveness and reduce dependence on any single country."

Observers also suggest that SK may use the New Icheon Forum as a turning point to shift its management strategy. Over the past several years, SK Group has focused on rebalancing — streamlining its sprawling affiliates and restructuring around an AI-centered business model. Industry watchers say that work has largely found its footing and is entering a closing phase, which could allow the group to signal a message oriented toward expansion rather than contraction as it pursues dominant AI competitiveness.

Signs of this strategic shift are already visible in the group's asset monetization and divestiture process. A prominent example is the prolonged negotiations between SK Group and Doosan Group over the sale of SK Siltron. The sale was originally pursued as part of the group's rebalancing, but surging global demand for advanced semiconductors driven by AI acceleration has dramatically raised the strategic value of semiconductor wafers — a core material. As the AI semiconductor value chain has become far more important to the group than it once was, SK is reassessing asset values and proceeding with greater caution in its divestiture and negotiation strategy, analysts say.

By Ko Eun-gyeol