By Daisuke Ichikawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

BARCELONA -- Japanese telecommunications giant NTT Inc. is considering cross-border collaboration with South Korean peer SK Telecom Co. to share idle computing power at artificial intelligence data centers, according to sources.

The two companies, industry leaders in their countries, are considering the plans amid rapid AI expansion, which is straining the capacity of data centers, with the aim of contributing to sustainable AI development.

Executives of the two companies discussed the collaboration privately in Barcelona on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress telecom trade show. Both companies took part in the event, which ran through Thursday.

Speaking to The Yomiuri Shimbun, SK Telecom CEO Jung Jai-hun commended NTT's data center business, which is the third largest in the world. "We and NTT will cooperate to expand AI-focused data centers," he said. "Data centers in Japan and South Korea will be connected to appropriately allocate computing power (between the two countries)."

NTT President and CEO Akira Shimada echoed Jung's sentiment, saying, "We have a vision to share computing power at data centers to cover shortages."

Shimada's remarks stem from the presence of discrepancies in idle computing power among data centers, as demand for AI shifts depending on the time.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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March 09, 2026 22:31 ET (02:31 GMT)

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