SK Telecom announced that it has become OpenAI’s exclusive B2C partner in South Korea, after the launch of OpenAI’s Korea office. This partnership holds a major milestone in Korea’s growing AI ecosystem as well as highlights the rising significance of Artificial Intelligence in Telecommunication.
The collaboration reflects Korea’s advancement as a “full-stack AI nation,” pushed by strong infrastructure, government backing, along with its a large tech-savvy population. It creates an established relationship between SKT as well as OpenAI, which includes initiatives like the 2023 Global AI Hackathon and their joint membership in the MIT GenAI Impact Consortium, aimed at applying generative AI to industrial innovation.
As the first step in their B2C partnership, SKT and OpenAI will offer a special promotion for ChatGPT Plus. From September 19 through February 2026, SKT customers can get three months free after subscribing for one month, with coupons available via the T Universe platform.
ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI’s premium subscription service, presents faster response times, early access to new features such as voice interaction, video generation, advanced tools, etc., including Deep Research, which synthesizes large volumes of data into comprehensive reports on topics like urban transport and commercial trends.
Looking forward, SKT plans to extend collaboration with OpenAI across both B2C as well as Enterprise Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry. This includes group-wide projects within SK Group as wel as aligns with SKT’s strategic vision of “self-strengthening and cooperation,” aiming to provide broader access to world-class AI services and further solidify Korea’s AI leadership.
Executive Statement
According to Lee Jae-shin, Head of SKT’s AI Growth Strategy Division, they are pleased to showcase marketing synergy based on the trust built with OpenAI, a global AI leader. They will reinforce both international collaboration and self-competitiveness to build a customer-centric AI ecosystem.
