[Edaily Lee So-Hyun·Yun Junghoon Reporter] Kakao(035720)and LG Uplus(032640)both posted record-high operating profits in the second quarter of this year.

Kakao’s earnings were driven by improved profitability in its platform businesses—including KakaoTalk advertising and commerce, as well as kakaopay and Kakao Mobility—while LG Uplus cultivated its artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) as a new growth engine.

While AI investments were previously viewed as costs necessary for future competitiveness, they are now being recognized as businesses that generate actual revenue and profits.

Kakao Accelerates AI Push on Back of Record Earnings… Pilots First Transaction with Coupang Eats

Kakao reported consolidated revenue of 2.0985 trillion won and operating profit of 277 billion won for the second quarter. These figures represent year-over-year increases of 9% and 36%, respectively, marking all-time highs for a single quarter. The operating profit margin also improved by approximately 3 percentage points to 13%.

The key to the strong performance was the recovery of the platform business. With platform revenue rising 17%, TalkBiz returned to double-digit growth for the first time in four years, driven by growth in advertising and commerce. KakaoTalk feed-based ads and business messaging reduced reliance on the existing BizBoard, while kakaopay and Mobility also contributed to profit growth. Coupled with the effects of divesting loss-making and non-core businesses—such as Kakao Games Corp.—profits generated by the platform began to be fully reflected in the consolidated results.

Shin Jong-hwan, Kakao’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), assessed this as “evidence that Kakao’s profit resilience has risen to a new level, rather than a temporary peak.” Kakao expects that once the effects of divesting non-core businesses are fully reflected starting in the third quarter, it will exceed its targets of over 10% annual revenue growth and a 10% operating profit margin.

Kakao plans to channel the increased profitability of its core business into AI investments and monetization. The first area of external collaboration is food delivery. Kakao plans to launch a service in the near future that uses Agent AI (A2A) integration with Coupang Eats to detect users’ intent to order food within KakaoTalk conversations, enabling them to complete the entire process—from menu recommendations to ordering and payment—all within the chat. Kakao intends to expand this to commerce, reservations, travel, and payments, and will begin generating revenue from transaction fees, subscriptions, and AI advertising in earnest starting next year.

In particular, based on users’ interests and purchase intentions identified during the AI exploration process, the company plans to expand its business scope to include the search advertising market—an area it has not yet fully entered. It also intends to rapidly expand its ecosystem by actively utilizing Kakao’s MCP-based open platform, “PlayMCP.” The goal is to grow AI-related revenue to account for a double-digit percentage of TalkBiz’s total revenue by 2028.

LG Uplus Grows AIDC… AI Infrastructure as a New Revenue Source

LG Uplus posted its highest-ever quarterly operating profit, driven by growth in its enterprise infrastructure segment, including AIDC. Second-quarter operating profit reached 344.5 billion won, a 13.1% increase year-over-year. Although revenue decreased by 3.9% to 3.6949 trillion won, the expansion of AI-centric B2B businesses and cost efficiencies drove improved profitability.

In particular, AIDC revenue rose 28.9% to 124.1 billion won, driven by growing demand for colocation services. Amid a slowdown in the telecommunications market, data centers—which absorb demand for AI computing—have established themselves as a new revenue stream complementing the company’s core business. Solution businesses, such as AI contact centers (AICC) and smart mobility, also grew, supporting the improved performance of the enterprise infrastructure segment.

To meet the growing demand for AI infrastructure, LG Uplus is constructing a 200-MW-class AIDC in Paju. Starting with the first data center building in the first half of next year, the company plans to sequentially bring a total of four buildings online by 2028. It is targeting the market by segmenting it—focusing on real-time inference demand in the Seoul metropolitan area and training and non-real-time demand in regional areas—while also securing additional power capacity through design, build, and operate (DBO) projects.

The company is also pursuing the “ONE LG” strategy, which combines the AI capabilities of LG Corp. The plan is to expand customized B2B AI businesses by integrating LG Uplus’s data center infrastructure with LG AI Research’s super-large AI “EXAONE,” domestically developed neural network processing units (NPUs), and LG CNS’s IT service capabilities. For AICC, which has delivered results primarily in the financial sector, the company will add large language model (LLM)-based callbots, chatbots, and consultation support solutions in the second half of the year.

Kakao and LG Uplus plan to combine the strengths of their existing businesses—services and infrastructure, respectively—with AI to improve profitability. Kakao will focus on consumer AI services centered on KakaoTalk rather than data centers, which require large-scale capital investment. LG Uplus will leverage its telecommunications network and data center operational capabilities to capture demand for AI infrastructure.

Jeong Shin-ah, CEO of Kakao, said, “Based on KakaoTalk—a daily touchpoint for users—and our technology and service ecosystem, we will accelerate the arrival of an era where all Koreans naturally utilize their own AI agents.”

Yeo Myeong-hee, CFO and Chief Risk Officer (CRO) of LG Uplus, emphasized, “We will turn the changes brought about by the spread of AI into new growth opportunities and enhance operational efficiency and profitability through company-wide AX.”