SK Telecom, Kakao, KT selected to provide free AI service for all Koreans

Three consortiums — led by SK Telecom, Kakao and KT Corp — have been selected to operate "AI for All," a free AI service open to the entire Korean public. The three consortiums will receive GPU allocations this year and government budget support beginning next year.

The government plans to sign agreements with the three operators next month and push to officially launch the AI for All service before the end of the year.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced Friday that it had chosen the SK Telecom, Kakao and KT Corp consortiums as the implementing organizations from among six applicants that competed for the AI for All project. Each of the three consortiums will receive 512 Nvidia B200 GPUs this year, with government budget support to follow from next year.

The participating operators were finalized through written and presentation evaluations. The written review considered AI model and service competitiveness, as well as technical suitability covering GPU utilization and infrastructure operation plans.

The presentation evaluation assessed service convenience and user acquisition strategy, service quality and safety assurance plans, and ecosystem contribution plans.

The SK Telecom consortium plans to develop an action-oriented AI service capable of handling everything from planning and execution to result verification in response to a single request. The service will be accessible not only through apps and the web but also via phone calls and text messages, allowing people with limited digital access to use it without any separate installation.

The service will offer conversation and search capabilities tailored to domestic administrative and local lifestyle contexts. It also plans to implement an AI agent function that looks up contact information for stores and government offices without official APIs and connects users through a phone-call proxy service. Specialized services in areas such as health and finance will also be offered, with plans to expand agent services through partnerships with various startups.

The Kakao consortium will provide a service integrating a general-purpose chatbot and AI agent through KakaoTalk, the country's dominant messaging app. Together with LG Uplus, it plans to release a lite version of a general-purpose phone AI service before the end of the year and expand it in stages.

The consortium will also work with PlayMCP and an AI agent marketplace to help promising AI companies build, test and distribute specialized agents directly. This is intended to rapidly expand the range of specialized agents available while contributing to the domestic AI ecosystem. Additional specialized services covering areas such as senior care and tax affairs will also be provided.

The KT Corp consortium will develop an AI service that integrates information search, comparison and decision-making with the execution and management of public and specialized services — all within a single conversational flow. The service will connect users naturally through an AI chatbot, covering search and content use on the Daum portal and app as well as search demand from partner channels including Danawa, Musinsa and Zigbang.

KT Corp will also link its telecommunications channels and media platforms, including IPTV, to the AI for All service, giving users a seamless AI experience across everyday channels. Specialized services in lifestyle-adjacent fields such as education and real estate will also be supported.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said it plans to sign agreements with the three operators next month, run a beta service period and officially launch the AI for All service before the end of the year. To that end, it will form a working-level consultative body with the selected operators and hold interagency discussions to link public data to the service.