When discussing AI competition, we often think of models, semiconductors and data centers. But AI works through a process of collecting data, training, running inference and sending results back to where they are used. Telecommunications networks connect every stage of this process.
The government's Hyper AI Network Strategy, announced at the end of 2025, was right to identify networks as essential infrastructure for the AI era. However, just over 290 billion won of the 9.9 trillion won AI budget for 2026 is allocated to implementing this strategy. Even allowing for the leading role of private investment in this field, that is a modest investment in such critical infrastructure. More important is asking what conditions that infrastructure must meet. Connections must remain available, avoid congestion and be accessible to everyone.
Three reasons networks have become more important in the AI era
There are three reasons networks have become even more important in the AI era. First, the nature of traffic has changed. Training moves enormous amounts of data between data centers, inference must take place close to users without delay, and AI agents and physical AI continuously upload data from operating environments.
Second, the geography of computing has changed. Electricity and location constraints are dispersing AI data centers beyond the Seoul metropolitan area and across national borders. Distributed computing can function as a unified capability only when connected by networks. Third, the depth of dependence has changed. As public administration, finance, healthcare and logistics increasingly run on AI, a telecommunications failure becomes a shutdown of social functions. We are familiar with the experience of a single data center fire bringing the national government computer network to a halt.
First condition, uninterrupted networks: an integrated design spanning subsea and space connections
The first condition, uninterrupted networks, requires an integrated design encompassing wired and wireless connections, subsea infrastructure and space. According to the ITU, subsea cables carry more than 99% of international data traffic and are effectively its only major transmission route. Yet South Korea's international network has only about a quarter as many cables as Japan or Singapore, some are approaching their design life, and cable landing stations remain concentrated in the southeast.
Satellite communications provide a last means of connection for islands, maritime areas and disaster situations. South Korea has operated geostationary satellites for more than 30 years through the Koreasat program, but the high latency of geostationary orbit limits two-way, real-time use in the AI era. For low Earth orbit satellites that could address this gap, the country depends on foreign satellite networks such as Starlink and does not yet have a single satellite it has launched and operates itself.
An integrated approach does not mean expanding every means of connection equally. It means designing the system so that one route compensates for another's vulnerabilities. As successive cable-cutting incidents in the Baltic Sea, the Red Sea and around Taiwan show, resilience is defined not by how rarely connections fail but by how quickly they are restored.
South Korea needs more diversified cable landing stations, its own repair capabilities and legal changes establishing subsea cables as critical national infrastructure. For satellites, even while using commercial networks until the Korean low Earth orbit network arrives in 2035, the country should adopt a practical model of sovereignty that retains control over core elements such as security gateways and encryption keys. Two routes do not constitute redundancy if they share the same conduit and power supply and can both be severed by a single accident.
Second condition, uncongested networks: from a single speed figure to two-way quality
The second condition is an uncongested network. Being connected and having a usable connection are different things. Quality in the AI era cannot be judged by a single peak download speed. Upload speed, latency and variation in latency determine users' experience alongside download performance.
Today's wired and wireless networks are a legacy of the era of downloading and watching video, with an asymmetric structure weighted toward downloads. But AI involves two-way exchanges: people upload voice and video to ask questions, robots, vehicles and sensors upload operational data, and agents exchange numerous short requests across services. When uplinks are congested, even the best model cannot perform to its full potential.
The government's decision to make upload speed and latency variation key verification metrics in its Hyper-AI pilot network demonstration is a step in the right direction. This should extend beyond demonstration sites to nationwide quality assessments and spectrum and investment policies. Assessment criteria should move beyond peak download speed alone to include two-way speeds, latency and users' experience during congested periods. The transition to standalone 5G, as well as 6G and AI-RAN, ultimately serves to guarantee this two-way quality everywhere.
AI data centers need network connectivity to compete globally
The global expansion of AI data centers, or AIDCs, is where these two conditions converge for industry. One approach is to make South Korea a global computing hub and export AI computing services. This is the idea behind SK Group's stated plan to build 15 GW of AIDC capacity by 2035.
Another approach is to export data centers as an integrated package. LG CNS's AIDC nearing completion in Jakarta is the first example combining design, construction and operation with cooling and batteries in an export package. Yet neither approach is complete without networks. No matter how large it is, a data center with limited international connection capacity and little route diversity cannot adequately serve global customers. Global developers evaluate the diversity of subsea cable routes and latency as closely as electricity availability.
A data center built overseas also needs a design that meets local connectivity requirements, provides secure dedicated routes to its home country, and satisfies local data regulations and customers' security requirements to be competitive. AIDC exports are not simply exports of buildings and servers, but of integrated systems combining computing, networks, operations and trust. Domestic AIDCs and backbone networks, international subsea networks and satellite networks should therefore be designed within a single national AI infrastructure plan.
Third condition, accessible networks: universal access to basic tokens
The third condition is a network accessible to everyone. South Korea designated local telephone and public telephone services as universal services in 2000. In 2020, it became the world's eighth country to include broadband internet in universal services, but adopted the fastest benchmark, at 100 Mbps.
The concept of universal service has already shifted once from telephone calls to data and must change again in the AI era. Whereas telephones connected people to people, basic communications in the AI era connect people to intelligence. The minimum unit is the token, the unit AI uses to process and bill for language. As the government pursues AI for Everyone, providing free general-purpose AI chatbots and public AI agents to all citizens, that promise cannot be fulfilled if the data connections needed to receive tokens are expensive, slow or effectively one-way.
Basic access to data networks that allows everyone to use the basic tokens needed for education, public administration, care and livelihoods should become the new standard for universal service. This means shifting from guaranteed wired connections to wired and wireless access usable while on the move, from download speeds to two-way quality, and from whether a connection is available to sufficient data allowances and affordable pricing for basic AI use. The decision by the three mobile carriers in April 2026 to provide 400 kbps data service even after users exhaust their allowances, and the government's description of this as a basic communications right, was a meaningful starting point.
AI networks that are resilient, uncongested and accessible to all
Becoming one of the top three AI nations requires more than possessing the best model. That status will belong to a country where AI continues to operate regardless of disruption, where two-way communication is available without congestion everywhere, and where no citizen is excluded. Advanced models cannot deliver their benefits without reliable connections, adequate capacity and universal access. Building complete AI network infrastructure must begin by addressing these three conditions together.
The views expressed in this column may differ from this publication's editorial position.
Original Korean article: ZDNet Korea
English brief by Korea Wind Intelligence, koreawindintel.com
