[Edaily Reporter Yun Junghoon ]SKTelecom(017670)reported that its operating profit for the second quarter of this year rose by nearly 70% compared to a year ago, driven by a base effect from costs related to last year’s hacking incident. SKT plans to leverage its solid telecommunications revenue to transform itself into an “AI infrastructure provider” centered on its artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) business.

During a conference call held today, SKT reaffirmed its “raise capital first, then invest” strategy regarding its gigawatt (GW)-class AIDC business, which involves securing investment before proceeding with capital expenditures.

Operating Profit Up 67% Due to Last Year’s Base Effect… Net Profit Increases More Than Fivefold

SKT announced on the 5th, through its Q2 2026 earnings release, that it recorded consolidated revenue of 4.3591 trillion won and operating profit of 566 billion won. Revenue rose 0.5% year-over-year, while operating profit increased by 67.3%. The company explained, “This result stems from a combination of base effects—such as costs related to SIM card replacements last year—and profitability-focused management.”

Net income surged 459.8% year-over-year to 466 billion won, compared to 83.2 billion won in the same period last year. EBITDA rose 17.0% to 1.4423 trillion won, and the EBITDA margin stood at 33.1%. Meanwhile, capital expenditures (CapEx) for the second quarter totaled 487 billion won, down 23.3% year-over-year but up 256.7% from the previous quarter (136.5 billion won). This is attributed to the full-scale launch of infrastructure investments, such as AIDC, beginning in the second quarter.

By business segment, mobile communications revenue totaled 2.5634 trillion won, down 1.9% year-over-year due to a decline in the number of subscribers. However, the number of 5G subscribers continued to grow, pushing the 5G penetration rate up to 82%, and handset subscribers also posted net growth for the second consecutive quarter. Marketing expenses rose 3.1% year-over-year to 747.7 billion won.

In the fixed-line segment, revenue grew by 3.8%, driven by an expansion in the share of ultra-high-speed subscribers and Giga-class lines. However, pay-TV revenue decreased by 0.8%, and enterprise revenue—which includes dedicated lines and business solutions—fell by 3.6%.

AI DC Revenue Up 92.5%…CFO: “We Will Become the No. 1 AI Infrastructure Provider”

Second-quarter AI data center revenue reached 136.2 billion won, surging 92.5% year-over-year thanks to the expansion of data center operations and contributions from submarine cable revenue. AI B2B and B2C revenue—including AI Cloud, AICC, and A.dot—also rose 24.5% to 61.3 billion won, driven by cloud order wins.

Park Jong-seok, SKT’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), announced the company’s goal during a conference call that day, stating, “We aim to become the No. 1 AI infrastructure provider in Korea.”

In response to a question about the rationale behind establishing “SK Hyper”—a dedicated data center subsidiary founded last month—and the sufficiency of AI demand, Lee Jae-shin, Head of AI Business Development, explained, “We established a subsidiary dedicated to AIDC development to facilitate the securing of land and power and to ensure a flexible business structure,” adding, “SK Hyper will lead customer acquisition and business development.”

Regarding the scale of investment, he stated, “We plan to invest 750 billion won in multi-gigawatt-class data centers, including one in Ulsan. SKTelecom will take the lead in business investment, but direct investment will be minimized.” He added, “We plan to invest 330 billion won this year and contribute the remaining amount in installments next year,” noting, “We are currently proceeding with initial projects such as securing land and constructing substation facilities.”

SK Hyper is pursuing a 15-GW-scale project and operates as a separate organization from SK Broadband. The official explained, “This structure combines SKTelecom’s telecommunications capabilities with SK Broadband’s data center construction capabilities.”

Regarding medium- to long-term demand forecasts, the official stated, “The growing demand for AI infrastructure inference and its expansion across the public sector represent structural changes,” adding, “We expect demand for AI infrastructure to continue expanding over the medium to long term.” He further emphasized, “There is also demand from domestic big tech companies, and we have the capability to respond to customer needs based on our full-stack approach.”

In particular, he noted, “We are currently in discussions with global Big Tech companies,” and revealed, “Based on customer demand totaling 5 GW, we plan to proceed with the business flexibly and in phases.”

Regarding funding methods, he explained, “We plan to secure funds by attracting financial investors (FIs), as there are limitations to KTCorporation providing the entire investment amount on its own,” adding, “We intend to pursue external financing in parallel, such as attracting strategic investors (SIs) and project financing (PF).”

The company is pursuing a Phase 1 strategy to sequentially increase its AI data center capacity—currently at 137 MW—to reach 5 GW starting in 2029. Phase 2 involves a roadmap to expand sequentially up to 15 GW, with plans to proceed in stages while taking customer demand and other factors into account.

CFO Park stated, “We are aware of the market’s concerns regarding the 5-gigawatt AIDC investment,” and revealed the plan, saying, “We will proceed with the investment only after securing customer demand first.”

The submarine cable business is also cited as a key pillar of AI infrastructure expansion. Following the launch of the SJC2 (Southeast Asia-Japan Cable 2) last July—a cable with a total length of 10,500 km connecting Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore—the company is currently constructing the 12,500-km E2A (East Asia to North America) cable, which will link the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, with a target launch date of 2029. The company plans to further expand its submarine cable infrastructure throughout the Asian region thereafter.