SK Telecom's 'Haein' cluster earns cloud security certification

SK Telecom's AI data center infrastructure, the "Haein" cluster, has obtained the Cloud Security Assurance Program (CSAP) certification. The company plans to use the milestone to strengthen its position in the sovereign AI cloud market and expand its AI infrastructure business in the public and financial sectors.

SK Telecom said Sunday that the Haein cluster — an AI data center built on Nvidia's Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) — had secured CSAP certification, bolstering its technical credibility. A cluster refers to a system that links multiple GPUs together to handle large-scale computing tasks.

SK Telecom said the Haein cluster passed the cloud security evaluation criteria set by the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), earning certification in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) category. CSAP is a government system that verifies the security of cloud services used by public institutions.

According to SK Telecom, this marks the first time a Blackwell GPU-based AI cloud provider has received CSAP certification in South Korea. The Haein cluster is a single cluster comprising more than 1,000 Blackwell GPUs.

SK Telecom said the certification establishes the cluster's public credibility and technical trustworthiness in GPU cluster security. The Haein cluster is already in active use as the training infrastructure for a government-led sovereign AI foundation model project, the company said, making the achievement particularly significant given the strict security standards it had to meet.

The Haein cluster met the security requirements for public cloud services, including network separation and data isolation. SK Telecom said this lays the groundwork for expanding its AI infrastructure business in the public and financial sectors.

SK Telecom also said the certification strengthens its standing in South Korea's sovereign AI cloud market. Sovereign AI refers to AI that a country independently builds and operates using its own data and infrastructure. The Haein cluster is serving as the training infrastructure for a government-led sovereign AI foundation model project, the company said, demonstrating its capabilities as a sovereign AI infrastructure.

"The Haein cluster has established itself as a sovereign AI infrastructure by becoming the first Blackwell GPU-based AI cloud provider to receive CSAP certification," said Kim Myeong-guk, head of SK Telecom's AI Factory business. "We will continue to deepen our contribution in the public infrastructure space."