SKT Unveils 688B-Parameter AI Model 'A.X K2'...“Enhanced Reasoning Capabilities”

Expansion into Manufacturing, Defense, and Biotechnology Sectors
Release of Three Lightweight Models for Multimodal Applications

On July 29, SK Telecom announced the release of its artificial intelligence (AI) foundation model, "A.DotX K2 (A.X K2)," stating that the company will actively support the AI transition in both daily life and industrial settings in Korea.

On this day, SK Telecom introduced A.X K2, which has 688 billion parameters (688B), on the open-source community Hugging Face. Compared to the previous model, A.X K1, which had 519 billion parameters, the new model has been scaled up to strengthen mathematical and scientific reasoning capabilities, as well as Korean knowledge and long-form reasoning performance.

According to SK Telecom, A.X K2 delivered an average performance improvement of 32.2 percentage points across 14 domestic and international benchmark tests compared to A.X K1. Notably, performance in long-form understanding and agent-related evaluations improved by approximately 83.9 percentage points, reflecting significant progress. SK Telecom explained that by incorporating its self-developed Sparse Gated Attention (SGA) architecture, the AI can more precisely filter and reference only the most relevant information when processing lengthy contexts.

A.X K2 demonstrated benchmark results on par with leading global AI models released in the past six months, such as Qwen, DeepSeek, GLM, and Kimi K2.6. SK Telecom plans to expand the use of A.X K2 into diverse industries and daily life across Korea. To achieve this, it conducted a total of four rounds of post-training to comprehensively assess response quality, stability, and operational efficiency, and is consistently uncovering application cases in areas such as manufacturing, defense, and biotechnology.

In the manufacturing sector, SK Telecom has incorporated practical industrial expertise into its AI. The company is applying A.X K2 to manufacturing-specialized AI agents at KG Steel, a steel manufacturer, and KONNEK, an automotive parts manufacturer. In the second half of the year, SK Telecom plans to deploy a demo version of the manufacturing-specialized AI agent for onsite testing at KG Steel's Dangjin plant’s cold-rolling line, which produces plated steel sheets, and at KONNEK's casting and machining processes.

In addition, SK Telecom has collaborated with the Ministry of National Defense to develop three quantized models based on A.X K1. These models address the unique requirements for high-level security and data sovereignty in the defense sector, utilizing quantization technology to reduce the memory footprint and accelerate processing speeds of A.X K1. SK Telecom and the Ministry of National Defense plan to use these models across units of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.

SK Telecom is also considering entry into the biotechnology sector. At present, the company is working with SK Biopharmaceuticals to utilize AI in the development of targeted therapeutics for intractable cancers. By applying SK Telecom’s AI technology, SK Biopharmaceuticals has achieved a reduction in the typical early-stage drug research period from one to two years down to five months.

In the office sector, SK Telecom has implemented A.X K2 in A.Biz, providing features such as generating newsletters and creating reports by collecting and analyzing information. A lightweight version of A.X K2 is also being used as an internal AI tool at SK hynix for various work needs, such as document drafting and information organization.

SK Telecom offers its AI models in API format to support the domestic AI ecosystem. It is currently providing A.X K1 to ordinary citizens participating in the "National AI Competition," hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT, as well as to startups selected for the "Challenge for All: AX-LLM," organized by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

SK Telecom also plans to participate in the "AI for All" initiative promoted by the Ministry of Science and ICT. Based on its full-stack AI capabilities covering models, services, and infrastructure, SK Telecom intends to accelerate the expansion of AI services that the public can directly experience.

Trillion-Parameter Expansion...AI Transition with Vision and Audio Models

SK Telecom aims to expand the successor to A.X K2 to a scale of trillions of parameters to secure global competitiveness. Since its first benchmark evaluation, SK Telecom has focused on developing large-scale models of over 500 billion parameters, gradually extending model size to match global industry leaders.

Given that leading global models are making trillion-parameter scales a baseline for competitiveness, SK Telecom will continue to advance the A.X lineup to enhance both scale and performance to approach the standard set by major big tech companies.

Furthermore, SK Telecom is developing a portfolio of derivative models based on the newly released A.X K2, including a vision encoder-based Vision Language (VL) model and an audio encoder/decoder-based Speech model, to respond to various industry demands.

Of the derivative models, A.DotX K2 VL Light-Preview and A.DotX K2 Audio Language Model (ALM) were developed by SK Telecom. A.DotX K2 Raon-Speech, meanwhile, is a proprietary model independently developed by Krafton.

The newly unveiled A.X K2 VL Light-Preview can simultaneously process images and text, making it useful for work involving reports, manuals, and on-site images. It recognizes and analyzes image-based documents such as receipts and research papers, and can be deployed in industrial use cases ranging from analyzing legal documents in image format to diagnosing risks or interpreting industrial piping schematics.

SK Telecom is exploring the application of A.X K2 ALM, which can recognize and analyze conversational, meeting, and on-site speech, for use in customer service phone call scenarios.

Krafton intends to use the technologies accumulated during the A.X K2 Raon-Speech model development to enhance natural voice interactions between players and AI in its future games.

Tae-yoon Kim, Foundation Model Lead at SK Telecom, stated, "We have enhanced a wide range of functions so that A.X K2 can be broadly applied from personal daily life to the workplace and factory floor. Going forward, we are committed to expanding and advancing A.X K2 in various industrial fields to contribute to enhancing national competitiveness."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.