SGH’s Penguin Solutions focuses on integrated AI data center solutions
Korean operator SK Telecom has signed an agreement to invest $200 million in Smart Global Holdings (SGH), which designs and develops high-performance solutions for data centers and enterprises.
SK Telecom has made clear its ambition to become an AI company, and SGH’s solutions are aimed at supporting AI deployments at scale.
In addition to the investment, the carrier and SGH plan to work together to boost development of global, end-to-end AI factory and data center solutions and services, advanced memory market products and services, and NPU-based AI edge servers.
SGH is headquartered in Milpitas, California and the company offers specialized platforms and services for high-performance computing, AI, machine learning, fault-tolerant computing and IoT. The company’s Penguin Solutions business provides integrated AI data center solutions that range from the design of AI clusters consisting of large-scale GPU servers, to expertise in data center deployment and operation.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Korean telco will invest $200 million in SGH by acquiring 200,000 convertible preferred shares.
“Our investment in and cooperation with SGH will give us an opportunity to boost our position in the AI value chain,” said Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom. “In the era of AI transformation, we plan to continue to collaborate and make proactive investments to achieve global leadership in AI,” he said.
“This announcement is a testament to Penguin Solutions’ capabilities in the deployment of AI factories at scale through our systems, software, and managed services suite of solutions. We look forward to executing on these strategic collaboration opportunities with the SKT team and believe they will create value for our respective stakeholders,” said Mark Adams, CEO of SGH.
Last year, SK Telecom had announced its ambition to become a global artificial intelligence company by strengthening its own AI competitiveness and cooperating with partners globally.
The carrier’s CEO Ryu Young-sang unveiled the telco’s new ‘AI Pyramid Strategy’ centered around three key areas including AI infrastructure, AI transformation (AIX) and AI service.
Under this strategy, the executive said that the telecom expects the proportion of AI-related investment to approximately triple from 12% over the past five years to 33% over the next five years.
The company noted that AI Infrastructure is an area where SK Telecom’s technological capabilities are concentrated. The area consists of AI data centers, AI semiconductors and multiple LLMs.
