AI-driven shifts will unlock opportunities: SK Chairman

Bumpy roads are ahead but the artificial intelligence industry will eventually boom, opening up new markets, said South Korea’s second-largest business group SK Group’s chief, urging its employees to prepare for a new leap with AI.

“Leverage AI. That is how we can survive this new ecosystem,” Chey Tae-won, the chairman of SK Group, said at a town hall meeting with employees held on Wednesday on the sidelines of the company’s annual forum called Icheon Forum held from Aug. 19 to 21.

He noted businesses profiting now are those in the AI value chain, and Big Tech companies are not shy about making huge investments to lead the AI race.

“Bumpy roads are expected but there is no doubt that the AI industry is on an upward trajectory,” said the chief. “The AI advancement will allow SK to do hardware business for AI data centers and develop related service models like large language models (LLMs).”

“Once a (right) business model is in place, the (AI) industry will develop in its own business cycle,” added Chey.

SK Group controls hundreds of companies across four mainstay sectors – semiconductor and materials, energy and chemicals, information and communication technology and logistics, service and bio.

Of them, its memory chip business SK Hynix Inc. is leading the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chip market, which has rapidly expanded in recent years in line with the advancement in the AI industry.

But the positive impact from the AI boom is expected to trickle down to other sectors beyond the chip industry, Chey said.

“Big Tech companies share the view that they may need nuclear power later to cover a massive amount of energy AI data center will consume,” said Chey. “Any changes in the energy mix (driven by Big Tech’s AI transition) will unlock opportunities for us.”

He met chiefs of Big Tech firms including Nvidia Corp., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC), OpenAI, Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. during his recent overseas business trips.

Training and delivering AI requires enormous amounts of computing power and data storage, meaning data centers consume a lot more electricity than before.

SK Group owns SK Innovation Co., Korea’s major oil refiner and battery maker, and 10 other energy-related affiliates.

“Every change driven by AI is an opportunity for us,” said Chey, urging employees to seek the right direction that will lead the company to a promising future.

The group has been in the process of streamlining its business portfolio to focus on core units such as semiconductors and batteries amid lingering economic uncertainties.

Write to Sang Hoon Sung at uphoon@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.