{"slug": "sk-telecom-tests-ai-ran-to-power-korea-s-digital-highway", "title": "SK Telecom tests AI-RAN to power Korea's digital highway", "summary": "SK Telecom has been selected to lead a government-backed pilot project to build and test an AI-RAN network in South Korea, integrating AI computing into cellular base stations to support physical AI services like robots. The two-year initiative, part of Korea's 'AI Highway' policy, will evaluate equipment from Samsung, HFR, Ericsson, and Nokia, and demonstrate three AI services including a patrol robot for industrial safety.", "body_md": "SK Telecom said it has been selected to carry out a government-backed \"Hyper-AI Network Infrastructure\" pilot project to build a next-generation \"AI-RAN\" network — which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize wireless base stations and run computing tasks on cellular hardware — and test three physical AI services under the initiative led by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Information Society Agency. The two-year project supports Korea's \"AI Highway\" policy initiative, which aims to build ultra-low-latency, highly reliable networks for physical AI such as robots. AI-RAN refers to networks in which cell towers provide AI computing power in addition to standard communication service, shifting some of a robot's AI processing load onto the network itself. SK Telecom will build and test AI-RAN equipment from four manufacturers — Samsung Electronics, HFR, Ericsson and Nokia — within a single project, comparing performance across different computing configurations. Three physical AI services will be demonstrated: a four-legged patrol robot for industrial safety mo", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-telecom-tests-ai-ran-to-power-korea-s-digital-highway", "canonical_source": "https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/companies/20260714/sk-telecom-tests-ai-ran-to-power-koreas-digital-highway?utm_source=rss", "published_at": "2026-07-14 05:17:02+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-14 05:24:46.292720+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-policy", "robotics"], "entities": ["SK Telecom", "Samsung Electronics", "HFR", "Ericsson", "Nokia", "Ministry of Science and ICT", "National Information Society Agency"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-telecom-tests-ai-ran-to-power-korea-s-digital-highway", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-telecom-tests-ai-ran-to-power-korea-s-digital-highway.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-telecom-tests-ai-ran-to-power-korea-s-digital-highway.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-telecom-tests-ai-ran-to-power-korea-s-digital-highway.jsonld"}}