SK Telecom (SKT) partnered up with Nvidia to use the chip company’s digital twin technology for semiconductor manufacturing environments operated by SK Hynix, pushing industrial AI deployments to achieve more automated factory operations.

The operator said it used Nvidia “Omniverse libraries” to adapt digital twins for complex, large-scale manufacturing environments, following a proof-of-concept completed last year at a SK Hynix semiconductor manufacturing site. It plans to commercialise the technology in stages as SK Hynix works to establish autonomous fab operations by 2030.

Using Nvidia’s Agent Toolkit, SKT developed Agentic Digital Twin Modelling technology to automate data processing, including site equipment and spatial structures, for use in digital twin systems. It also integrated Nvidia Omniverse libraries to make large 3D factory scenes load faster, run more smoothly and use GPU and memory resources more efficiently.

The set up aims to improve data conversion, scene optimisation and performance tasks required to build and run digital twins at scale.

SKT explained digital twins act as working replicas of real factories and equipment. In semiconductor plants, they can be used to test changes to processes or equipment layouts in advance, helping reduce costly trial and error in highly complex production sites.

Mike Geyer, head of industrial digital twins at Nvidia, said semiconductor fabs are “among the most challenging manufacturing environments”, citing “massive amounts of 3D data, complex equipment structures, and the need for high-level optimisation”.

Cho Ik-hwan, head of physical AI at SKT, added the collaboration demonstrates manufacturing digital twins can move “beyond simple 3D visualisation” into systems capable of “understanding and optimising large-scale 3D manufacturing data”.

SKT added the move bolsters its plans to expand its enterprise and public sector business with AI offerings spanning infrastructure, models and services.

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