South Korea’s SK Telecom and Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom, have come together with NTT, a prominent Japanese digital infrastructure player, to create IOWN Fund, that targets investments worth up to US$ 500 million in AI infrastructure, semiconductors, software, and services across the world.
In a press release, IOWN Fund listed photonic technologies, AI processors and advanced packaging, light source and modulators, management technologies for distributed AI infrastructure, software, AI models and inference, applications and services as its primary investment targets.
Commenting on the formation of the fund, Chey Tae-won, Chairman, SK Group, said, “To emerge as a competitive AI nation, proactive and large-scale investment in AI infrastructure is essential, and trust-based global cooperation is equally important. We hope the IOWN AI Fund will play a key role in identifying and fostering AI startups not only across Asia but around the world.”
Chih-Cheng Chien, Chairman, Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. said, “Leveraging our telecommunications expertise, we will empower global startups through rigorous technology evaluation and cross-border business development. We look forward to accelerating the commercialization of cutting-edge technologies and shaping a highly efficient, next-generation AI ecosystem.”
NTT further revealed that in connection with the formation of the IOWN AI Fund, Catalight Capital, Inc. will also be established as a fund management company with operations in Silicon Valley and Tokyo. Under a global operating structure, Catalight Capital will identify promising startups and support their growth.
“In recent years, with the advancement of Physical AI and Agentic AI, the use of AI has been shifting from a focus on training large-scale models to inference applications that require real-time performance and individualized optimization. As a result, demand for AI infrastructure is expanding beyond hyperscalers to a wide range of industries, including financial institutions and automotive companies,” said NTT explaining the rationale behind setting up the fund. “In line with this trend, AI infrastructure is expected to shift from architectures centered on large-scale public data centers to more distributed architectures that include medium-sized edge data centers.”
Explaining how all its investment plans would take shape, NTT said, “With operations in Silicon Valley and Tokyo, the Fund will secure access to leading-edge technologies and startups in Silicon Valley, one of the world’s foremost innovation hubs. By leveraging local investment activities and a global network, the Fund will promote investments in promising startups primarily in North America, as well as in Asia and Europe.”
Akira Shimada, President and CEO, NTT, Inc. said, “To realize AI-native infrastructure, it is essential to combine the optical and networking technologies that NTT has cultivated with advanced technologies and the strengths of partners around the world. Through the IOWN AI Fund, we will promote business collaboration with promising startups, work together with our global partners to build the IOWN ecosystem, and contribute to the creation of a new industrial foundation.”
The Development Bank of Japan, and Young Sohn, a silicon valley based technology investment veteran who has extensive experience in venture investment and corporate management in the Deep Tech area, particularly optical communications and semiconductors, will also play key roles in IOWN.
Seiji Jige, President and Chief Executive Officer, Development Bank of Japan Inc. said, “Achieving effective startup investment and ecosystem building through this fund requires close and organic cooperation among a wide range of companies, including the fund’s participating investors. Guided by our corporate philosophy, “Designing the Future with Financial Expertise,” DBJ will actively support this initiative from the perspective of a financial institution to help maximize the value of this framework.”
“As AI moves toward large-scale inference and distributed intelligent systems, the industry faces a new infrastructure challenge spanning compute, networking, memory, and energy efficiency. We believe photonics-enabled infrastructure and distributed optical computing will play a critical role in addressing this shift,” said Young Sohn, a key operating partner in the venture who is also Co-Founder and Founding Managing Partner of Walden, Catalyst Ventures. “Through Catalight Capital and the IOWN AI Fund initiative, we are bringing together global operators, deep technology expertise, and startup innovation to help build the future foundation of AI infrastructure.”
In a post on LinkedIn, SK Telecom, Chunghwa Telecom and NTT further revealed that they planned to take AI collaboration beyond borders, and that the fund will back startups across the full AI stack. These include AI data center infrastructure such as power efficiency, and liquid cooling. IOWN Fund will also invest in AI chips — accelerators, GPUs, NPUs. It will also consider investing in AI software for inference optimization and distributed cloud, as well as optical networking for high-speed, energy-efficient data transmission. It will also invest in AI applications across healthcare, manufacturing, and finance. Beyond capital, the three companies will support portfolio companies with technology validation, service development, and customer discovery.