What was announced and who is involved
On September 23, 2026, Samsung Electronics announced that it had signed contracts with KT and SK Telecom, two of South Korea's major mobile operators, to take part in the Ministry of Science and ICT's (MSIT) Hyper AI Network program. According to Samsung's press release, it is the only vendor chosen for both projects: exclusive global supplier in KT's and main supplier in SK Telecom's.
Field trials begin in October 2026. According to RCR Wireless, the program runs for two years, has a total budget of about 17.2 billion won (9.2 billion for the KT consortium and 8 billion for the SK Telecom consortium), and the consortia were selected in July 2026 by the ministry and the National Information Society Agency (NIA).
What AI-RAN is, explained without jargon
The RAN (radio access network) is the part of the cellular network you see in the antennas: the part that connects your phone to the operator over the air. AI-RAN means bringing artificial intelligence to that part of the network, with two goals:
- Letting the network manage itself better: AI adjusts coverage, capacity and quality based on what is happening in real time, and detects faults automatically.
- Letting the network also run AI: the same servers that process the radio signal, close to the user (at the “edge”), can run AI applications, for example so a robot can see and react instantly.
RCR Wireless points out that AI-RAN is not yet a single standardized product but a broad concept. And the Korean trials run on private 5G Standalone networks; “AI-native 6G” is the national goal for the future, not what is being tested today.
Robots at a shipyard and a petrochemical plant
According to Samsung, both projects set up private 5G networks in real industrial environments to validate the technology and collect data:
- KT will run trials at HD Hyundai Samho's Yeongam shipyard, with welding and painting robots and autonomous robots for telecom facilities. One of them is a four-legged welding robot that uses 5G and edge AI to recognize its surroundings and weld precisely.
- SK Telecom will validate the technology at SK Incheon Petrochem, with an autonomous patrol robot for hazardous areas and camera monitoring with high-definition video and AI risk detection.
Samsung's solution, called Network in a Server, combines virtualized radio (vRAN), the network core and AI applications in one compact server, using Supermicro hardware, AMD processors and Wind River's cloud platform. According to Tele Info Today, the government plans to expand the demonstrations to humanoid robots after 2027.
The race for 6G standards
South Korea was one of the first countries to launch commercial 5G and wants to do it again with 6G. According to Tele Info Today, commercial 6G deployment is expected around 2030, with trial networks from around 2029, and operators are betting on AI-RAN to influence the standards before then. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon confirmed that the ministry is working with operators on a roadmap from 5G to 6G.
These trials don't come out of nowhere. In November 2025, Samsung and SK Telecom signed a cooperation agreement on AI-RAN for 6G, and in December 2025 Samsung and KT validated AI optimization on KT's commercial network, in a test that, according to RCR Wireless, involved about 18,000 users. In addition, analysts cited by Tele Info Today expect 6G demand to come mainly from industry and the public sector (robots, drones, smart factories) rather than from consumer phones.
What it means for businesses in Colombia and Latin America
No Colombian company needs AI-RAN this year, but the news offers useful lessons for planning:
- The cellular network will be a work tool, not just a calling tool. The Korean trials show private networks running robots and smart cameras. In the region, mining, ports, energy and logistics will be the first to take advantage of it.
- 5G Standalone comes first. The whole roadmap goes through standalone 5G. It is worth following its rollout and understanding what 5G offers businesses in Colombia.
- Replace old equipment. While the world moves toward 6G, many companies still depend on 2G and 3G devices. Reviewing that inventory is the most urgent and concrete step.
- AI is arriving everywhere. In the network and in customer service: the same automation principles already apply today to phone service and chat.
At 19 80 TIC Cloud, as a mobile virtual network operator partnered with Suma Móvil, we help companies take that step with business mobile telephony, cloud communications and artificial intelligence agents for customer service.
