SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said Korea can play a crucial role "as a test bed" for the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, citing the country's strength in adopting new technologies quickly and applying them to the real world.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, Chey said Korea may not have as many resources as the United States or China, but it offers an ideal environment for testing new AI technologies.

"Our side is good for the test. There is physical AI, bio side and even the regulations, and we've got a really good test bed," he said, adding that Korea's fast adoption of new technologies makes the country an ideal location for AI experiments.

He noted that while the AI industry contains "some bubbles," the overall technology and market remain on a growth trajectory.

"Right now, the cost of AI is too much, and that's why people [are] just saying that there's a lot of bubbles," Chey said. "But this is just an early stage. Even though there are some bubbles, the whole technology and the market will pick up. The only challenge is that we don't really provide the solution for the application yet, so once we catch up with the world in the application market, the AI will be something else."

He noted that AI competition has evolved from a corporate to a national rivalry, as countries scramble to develop their own AI infrastructure and ecosystems. Therefore, the current AI frenzy is not a bubble but "a sign of structural competition."

During the interview, he said that AI is entering a new stage of agentic AI, where AI agents communicate directly with one another. This, he explained, will create enormous memory demands in the future, making the ability to secure such infrastructure a key element of national competitiveness.

Regarding the Korean government's plan to secure 200,000 graphics processing units by 2030, Chey said the initiative aligns with the goal of making "AI for everybody."

"Computing power is the essential infrastructure for AI businesses, so even though the Korean market demand is not enough, we could actually sell to other nations' markets too," he said.