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Samsung Secures AI-RAN Deals with Korea’s Top Carriers in Hyper AI Network Program

Samsung Electronics has taken a major stride in the artificial intelligence-driven telecommunications race, signing separate contracts with South Korean carriers KT Corporation and SK Telecom to participate in the country’s nationally coordinated Hyper AI Network program. The agreements position Samsung as a central technology partner in what may become one of the world’s most advanced testbeds for AI-native radio access network (AI-RAN) deployment — and a blueprint that other markets are watching closely.

The Hyper AI Network initiative, backed by the South Korean government, represents a two-year commitment to building next-generation wireless infrastructure that natively integrates artificial intelligence into the RAN layer — not as a bolt-on feature, but as a foundational architectural component. Initial pilots are set to launch in some of Korea’s most demanding industrial environments: active shipyards and petrochemical processing plants, where network reliability, ultra-low latency, and real-time adaptability are critical operational requirements.

What Is AI-RAN and Why Does It Matter?

Traditional RAN systems rely on static configurations and pre-programmed responses to network conditions. AI-RAN fundamentally changes that paradigm by embedding machine learning models directly into the base station and network management layers, enabling the network to autonomously optimize spectrum use, interference management, beamforming, and traffic prioritization in real time.

For industrial environments like shipyards — where large metallic structures create challenging RF propagation conditions — or petrochemical plants requiring fail-safe communications for safety-critical operations, the ability of an AI-RAN system to dynamically adapt is not merely a performance enhancement. It is a practical necessity.

Samsung has been investing heavily in AI-RAN capabilities through its Networks Business division, building on its existing 5G base station portfolio and integrating AI inference engines at the distributed unit (DU) and centralized unit (CU) levels. The company has also been collaborating within the O-RAN Alliance framework, where AI/ML models are increasingly being standardized for deployment in the near-real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (near-RT RIC) and non-real-time RIC environments.

The Hyper AI Network: Korea’s Industrial Wireless Ambition

South Korea has long been a first-mover in wireless technology adoption — it was among the first nations to launch commercial 5G services in 2019 — and the Hyper AI Network program continues that tradition of aggressive technology investment. The initiative is designed to accelerate the commercialization of AI-integrated 5G infrastructure across high-value industrial verticals, with shipbuilding and petrochemicals chosen as initial sectors due to their economic significance and the complexity of their communications requirements.

Korea’s shipbuilding industry, which includes global heavyweights like Hyundai Heavy Industries, POSCO, and HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, relies on precise coordination of machinery, autonomous guided vehicles, and large workforces across vast, RF-challenging environments. Similarly, petrochemical facilities demand deterministic, interference-resistant communications to support safety monitoring, process automation, and emergency response systems.

By deploying AI-RAN in these environments, the program aims to generate real-world performance data that can be used to refine standards, validate vendor claims, and build a commercial case for wider industrial 5G adoption — both domestically and internationally.

KT and SK Telecom: Two Giants, One National Vision

The dual nature of Samsung’s contracts — spanning both KT and SK Telecom, South Korea’s two dominant mobile network operators — is strategically significant. Rather than a single-operator trial, the Hyper AI Network program effectively creates parallel AI-RAN deployments that can be benchmarked against each other, accelerating learning and increasing the robustness of findings.

SK Telecom has been particularly vocal about its AI ambitions, positioning itself as an “AI company” rather than a traditional telco. The operator has been developing its own large language model, A., and has signaled that AI-native network infrastructure is central to its long-term differentiation strategy. KT Corporation, meanwhile, has been advancing its own enterprise 5G and private network capabilities, with industrial deployments forming a key part of its B2B growth story.

For Samsung, winning both contracts is a strong commercial validation of its AI-RAN technology roadmap and reinforces its position against competitors like Ericsson, Nokia, and emerging Open RAN vendors who are all vying for dominance in the AI-integrated network era.

Broader Industry Implications

The Hyper AI Network program arrives at a moment when the global telecom industry is grappling with how to monetize 5G investments and justify the enormous capital expenditures of the past several years. AI-RAN is increasingly seen as the answer — not only to improve network performance but to reduce operational costs through intelligent automation and to unlock new revenue streams from enterprise and industrial customers.

Analyst firms including Dell’Oro Group and ABI Research have projected that AI-integrated RAN will become a multi-billion dollar market segment by the end of the decade, with Asia-Pacific — and South Korea in particular — serving as a critical proving ground for commercial viability.

The O-RAN Alliance’s AI/ML working groups and 3GPP’s ongoing standardization of AI-assisted network management in Release 18 and 19 provide the technical scaffolding for these deployments, but real-world pilots like those in Korea’s Hyper AI Network will be instrumental in moving standards from paper to practice.

Looking Ahead

As the two-year program gets underway, the telecom industry will be watching Korea’s shipyards and petrochemical plants not just as industrial worksites, but as living laboratories for the future of wireless networking. If Samsung, KT, and SK Telecom can demonstrate measurable gains in network efficiency, reliability, and application performance through AI-RAN in these demanding environments, the ripple effects could reshape vendor selection decisions, operator strategies, and government spectrum policy from Tokyo to Berlin to Washington.

For Samsung, the stakes extend well beyond Korea. Success here could unlock a compelling global sales narrative at a time when the AI-RAN market is still taking shape — and when being first with credible, at-scale proof points could mean everything.