Samsung SDS has identified stablecoin infrastructure as the first major collaboration area under its investment in Dunamu, outlining plans to combine blockchain, AI and cloud technologies as part of its digital asset strategy. According to Samsung SDS President Lee Joon-hee during the second-quarter earnings conference call, the company's stake in Dunamu was made to enter the digital asset infrastructure business rather than as a financial investment. The companies are discussing stablecoin infrastructure, AI-powered next-generation payments and virtual asset financial system integration, with discussions continuing as both sides work toward developing concrete business models.
In May, Samsung Securities, Samsung SDS and Samsung Card agreed to acquire a combined 4% stake in Dunamu for 612.8 billion won (about $408 million) by purchasing 1.39 million shares from Kakao-linked entities. Samsung SDS acquired a 1% stake, while Samsung Securities purchased 2% and Samsung Card acquired the remaining 1%. At the time, Samsung SDS said it planned to combine its AI, cloud, security and data management services with Dunamu's blockchain expertise, while Dunamu expected cooperation on blockchain investment products, payment infrastructure and AI-related blockchain applications.
Samsung SDS disclosed that second-quarter revenue increased 5.9% year over year to 3.7178 trillion won, while operating profit rose 0.7% to 231.8 billion won and net profit climbed 4.6% to 184.1 billion won. IT services revenue reached 1.7625 trillion won, up 5% from a year earlier. Cloud operations remained the fastest-growing segment, with revenue from the cloud business increasing 17% to 779.4 billion won and external cloud business revenue jumping 75% year over year. Cloud service provider revenue grew 24% as demand for Samsung Cloud Platform increased and GPU-as-a-Service deployments expanded across public-sector and enterprise customers.
Samsung SDS continues expanding its AI infrastructure and enterprise AI offerings, recently selected as a core operator under South Korea's government-backed GPU infrastructure program and launching an NPU-as-a-Service product based on FuriosaAI's Renegade neural processing chip. The company has secured AI-related projects with Woori Bank and the Export-Import Bank of Korea while maintaining partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Cloud for generative AI services. Samsung SDS currently operates about 110 megawatts of AI infrastructure and plans to expand capacity to 230 megawatts by 2029, with the figure expected to exceed 800 megawatts by 2031 when design, construction and operational projects are included.
The latest comments come less than a week after Samsung Electronics disclosed plans to bring stablecoin support to Samsung Wallet, with the wallet application set to support stablecoins alongside payments, rewards and digital assets. Together, the wallet announcement and Samsung SDS's latest remarks indicate that Samsung's digital asset initiatives now extend from consumer payment products to the infrastructure supporting blockchain-based financial services. The direction differs from Samsung's response to Open Standard's proposed OUSD stablecoin consortium earlier this month, when Samsung said it had not held formal consultations with Open Standard and did not know what role it was expected to play.
