SK Telecom’s elite team has developed a groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) model called A.X K1, which has captured widespread attention both in South Korea and abroad. The model’s technical report, released just four days ago, has already been downloaded over 8,800 times. SK Telecom is a key player in the government’s Independent AI Foundation Model initiative.
SK Telecom reported on January 11 that A.X K1 is performing on par with or surpassing global AI models like DeepSeek V3.1 in key benchmarks. This pioneering model, boasting 519 billion parameters, was developed in a remarkably short four-month period, marking a significant milestone in Korea’s AI landscape.
The technical report for A.X K1, released on January 7, has sparked intense interest, with download numbers soaring past 8,800 in just four days.
SK Telecom attributes this surge of interest to the model’s impressive scalability. Across social media platforms, including LinkedIn and Facebook, users are praising A.X K1’s availability under the Apache 2.0 license, which allows for unrestricted use and distribution.
Clem Delangue, founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hugging Face, has singled out A.X K1 as a prime example of Korea’s rapid progress in AI technology.
On January 8, Delangue took to LinkedIn to announce that three Korean models, including A.X K1, had been selected among Hugging Face’s popular models. He emphasized that open-source technology is enabling every nation to become a developer, a trend he strongly endorses.
Epoch AI, a prominent U.S.-based nonprofit AI research organization, recognized the significance of Korea’s AI advancements by featuring five models from the country’s ‘Independent AI Foundation Model’ project in its Notable AI Models list from December 29 to 31 last year.
Industry experts continue to laud the model’s capabilities. On January 8, Lee Seung-hyun, vice president of 42Maru, shared on Facebook that A.X K1 has demonstrated value far beyond what one might expect from a project starting from scratch.
In AI communities like Hugging Face, international developers are praising the model’s originality. They note that its independent development from the ground up positions Korea to compete directly with AI powerhouses like the U.S. and China in large-scale AI development.
Looking ahead, SK Telecom’s elite team plans to enhance the model with multimodal features and expand its capabilities to include trillions of parameters, beginning this year.
The team’s strategic vision is to establish A.X K1 as a cornerstone of Korea’s AI infrastructure, functioning as digital social overhead capital (SOC) for the national AI ecosystem. They are committed to providing ongoing support for a diverse range of smaller, specialized models that can leverage A.X K1’s vast knowledge base for their own growth and development.
