What Does a Partnership Between a Telecom Giant and Search Startup Reveal About the Future of AI?
How do you take a revolutionary technology and make it mainstream? A new partnership between South Korea’s SK Telecom and AI leader Perplexity might offer the blueprint.
Generative AI, like cloud and mobile before it, is the next giant leap in personal computing. These platforms are breaking records, driven by massive investment from Venture Capital funds, tech giants, and governments.
But generative AI isn’t everywhere — yet. It’s still mainly in the hands of early adopters. In markets like the U.S. and U.K., fewer than half the population is using it.
Mainstream adoption is always the toughest hurdle for new tech, but the deal between SK Telecom (SKT) and Perplexity is paving the way. It brings Perplexity’s AI-powered search engine to SKT’s customers, putting the future of search in the hands of tens of millions of new users.
The partnership also marks a key step in the ongoing convergence of AI and telecommunications. In a recent whitepaper, SK Telecom highlights projections showing AI demand in mobile communications could reach $20 billion by 2030 — a tenfold increase from 2022. The SKT-Perplexity deal shows how mobile communication equipment can turn that demand into real products and solutions for users.
Here’s how SK Telecom and Perplexity are helping scale generative AI for everyone.
From Startup to Scale: Inside SK Telecom’s Perplexity Partnership
SK Telecom, a global telecom leader and subsidiary of SK Group, is South Korea’s largest mobile carrier. Their network supports more than 32 million users.
The company operates in one of the fastest-growing markets for generative AI, with the tech expected to see 46.64% annual growth in South Korea through 2030. Last year, SKT unveiled its AI Pyramid strategy to become a global leader in AI infrastructure, transformation, and services.
The newly announced partnership with Perplexity is a significant leap forward in that ambition. It’s the first major distribution deal for the U.S.-based AI leader.
Perplexity already has over 10 million active monthly users, but access to SK Telecom’s network brings it to an unprecedented scale. All 32.5 million SK Telecom users will gain access to Perplexity Pro, offering unlimited searches on the platform.
And that’s just the start. SK Telecom is now collaborating with Perplexity to develop new AI tools, including personalized AI assistants. This could make SKT the first telco to replace traditional voice assistants like Siri with AI-powered assistants.
While AI companies have formed partnerships to develop infrastructure and share data, direct distribution deals are a new phenomenon. They are an important step towards expanding generative AI’s impressive capabilities from early adopters to the mainstream.
The AI Pyramid: SK Telecom Invests in Global AI
The SK-Perplexity deal is just one of several partnerships SK Telecom is forging to expand AI access. Guided by its Pyramid strategy, SKT is investing across the intersection of cutting-edge AI technology and legacy industries.
Last year, SKT announced a $100 million investment in U.S.-based AI research leader Anthropic to develop a large language model for the telecom sector. SKT also made a $200 million preferred equity investment in SMART Global Holdings (SGH), a leader in next-gen enterprise solutions, to advance AI-driven factory and data center solutions for the advanced memory market.
SK Telecom will also launch an AI-based veterinary diagnosis service, “X Caliber,” in North America. The program will roll out in over 100 veterinary hospitals across Canada, with a pilot project in New Jersey for launch before the end of this year.
From Perplexity to X Caliber, these initiatives place SK Telecom at the forefront of AI innovation, driving both front- and back-end advancements across global markets and industries.
The hype around generative AI is well-founded. These technologies are advancing at breakneck speed, poised to reshape industries old and new. But the true game-changer in any tech revolution isn’t innovation — it’s scale. The SK Telecom-Perplexity partnership is the next leap in AI’s evolution: where cutting-edge tech meets mass adoption. For tens of millions of users, next-gen capabilities are now within reach.
