South Korea’s SK Group is plowing knowledge-based computing, new-generation solutions for vehicles and security, and bioengineering to keep up competitiveness beyond chipmaking in the new environment of self-automation and robotics as the result of the fourth industrial revolution.

“We must strengthen our capacity in the ever-expanding ICT field,” said SK Group, the country’s third largest conglomerate marking the 64th anniversary of its founding and fifth year of the acquisition of SK Hynix under a boom business in its core operations of wireless, semiconductor, and refining.

The conglomerate stressed preemptive investment to have eyes in the future instead of being complacent with current boon led by strong chip demand for high-performance memory and broader applications to power smart devices, recovery in oil prices, and transition to next-generation wireless service to enable self-driving and artificial intelligence applications.

The nation’s leading mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. launched an artificial intelligence (AI) team led by its chief executive officer as part of efforts to foster the AI business. It has been expanding its business into connected car incorporating the fifth-generation (5G) network communication and Internet of Things (IoT) technology, and into quantum cryptography technology that is being regarded as the next-generation security solution.

SK C&C, the group’s IT solution unit, has been developing a cognitive computing system called Aibril based on IBM’s Watson. The system is already used in some part of the medical sector and will expand its appications to various industries including manufacturing, financial and retail sectors.

SK Hynix in an ambitious move for a leap to the world’s top place in memory industry by strengthening its flash memory business bid for the semiconductor unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp. last month. It offered to buy more than 50 percent stake in Toshiba’s memory business plus management control, according to sources.

The group’s ICT business has been rapidly growing since it took over SK Hynix in 2012. Sales of the group’s ICT units surged to 37.4 trillion won ($32.7 billion) in 2016 from 17.6 trillion won in 2011. Their combined outbound shipments soared 130 times from 130 billion won to 17 trillion won over the same period. With the stellar performance, SK Hynix increased its research and development investment from 834 billion won to 2.96 trillion won last year. The firm’s overall investment has also doubled to 7 trillion won this year from 3.5 trillion won in 2011.

SK Group is also nurturing the bio business as its future growth engine. Its bio business has been under a direct management of its holding entity SK Holdings Co. since the group adopted the holding company structure in 2007. It established SK Biopharmaceuticals, a new drug development unit, in 2011. In 2016, SK Holdings acquired a 100 percent stake in SK Biotech, a manufacturer of raw materials for medicines, from SK Biopharmaceuticals to bolster biotech business.

By Jung Wook

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