SK Telecom's (KRX:017670) consortium passed phase one of the South Korean government-led Sovereign AI Foundation Model project, advancing to phase two alongside three other teams, according to a Friday release.

The SKT consortium comprises SK Telecom, Krafton (KRX:259960), 42dot, Rebellions, Liner, SelectStar, Seoul National University, and Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology.

The A.X K1 model is tied for first place with LG AI Research in the phase one National Information Society Agency (NIA) evaluation. In phase two, the consortium plans to add multimodal capabilities, increase training data, support five languages, and release follow-up models, comprising A.X K2, the release said.

Shares of SK Telecom rose nearly 1% in recent trade.