SK Telecom’s AI unit offers staff voluntary retirement program just weeks after launch

South Korean telco giant SK Telecom is making big changes at its new AI division, AI CIC, just weeks after it was launched. Staff employed by the unit are being offered a voluntary retirement program as part of a broader effort to bring together the company’s various AI-related divisions, SK Telecom confirmed to TechCrunch.

“In late September, SK Telecom announced the launch of the AI CIC (Company-in-Company) unit and confirmed that detailed organizational restructuring would be specified by the end of October,” a spokesperson at SK Telecom told TechCrunch. “This special retirement program is entirely a supportive measure and is not intended as a restructuring or downsizing measure.”

The voluntary retirement program will not involve forced layoffs, and is meant to support employees whose roles, organizations or work locations may change, the spokesperson said. Employees who opt to stay with the company may be reassigned to regional offices.

Details of the voluntary retirement program have been communicated to staff across all experience levels, including both junior and senior employees, industry sources told TechCrunch. The AI unit has about 1,000 employees, per media reports.

AI CIC is meant to bring together SK Telecom’s various AI-related units under a centralized organization, per the spokesperson. “This integration involves streamlining overlapping roles and functions, which may inevitably lead to changes such as role transitions, organizational realignments, or relocations,” they said.

The new division will oversee the development of SK Telecom’s personal AI agent, A. (pronounced “A-dot”), its AI data center operations, enterprise AI business, as well as global AI partnerships and investments.

Severance packages are reportedly expected to vary based on employees’ tenure and position, but the spokesperson told TechCrunch the company has set no such internal targets. “As participation is entirely voluntary, it is difficult at this stage to predict [how many employees] it may impact on the organization as a whole,” the spokesperson said.

The restructuring comes as SK Telecom seeks to streamline operations and boost efficiency, with a specific focus on AI. The company plans for the AI division to record annual revenue of ₩5 trillion (around $3.5 billion) by 2030, and expects AI-driven B2C and B2B services as well as related infrastructure to drive that growth.

The telecom giant recently unveiled an AI infrastructure effort, offering Nvidia Blackwell GPUs-as-a-service, and earlier this month partnered with OpenAI to develop AI data centers in southwestern Korea as part of the ‘Stargate Korea’ initiative.