SKT, Samsung Electronics, and Kakao Form AI R&D Council
The three companies plan to release AI to overcome the pandemic in the first half of next year.
Domestic and international ICT companies are expected to join the alliance.


Another domestic AI alliance has taken shape.

SK Telecom, Samsung Electronics, and Kakao announced on the 22nd that they have formed an AI alliance and will collaborate on related technology development. Through this alliance, the three companies plan to pool their core competencies to jointly pursue ▲development of future AI technologies, ▲research on how to utilize AI to solve societal challenges, and ▲expand the base of AI technology.

In particular, considering that COVID-19 is a critical moment with a serious impact on the national economy and society, the two sides decided to prioritize cooperation by focusing on overcoming the pandemic early and developing AI for the public good.

To this end, the three companies formed an "AI R&D Council." The council will consist of each company's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or AI executives, who will participate in joint development efforts. In the future, we plan to consider expanding the scale to the level of a global AI alliance, as well as the participation of other domestic businesses.

The collaboration between the three companies began in January at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, USA, where executives from the three companies pledged to advance AI technology by leveraging their respective strengths (networks, devices, and platforms). In March, a joint working group was formed to discuss key collaborative projects and development directions.

◇ The first joint project of the three AI companies, AI to overcome the pandemic.

The three companies plan to release their first joint project, "Pandemic Overcoming AI," in the first half of next year. This AI will identify COVID-19 risk levels in real time around the user's current location, analyze the risk level, and recommend social distancing or provide alternative routes. It can also be applied to disaster situations such as typhoons and heavy rain.

Although it can be considered a disaster alert within a broad category, it is different from existing disaster alerts that focus on notifying of the fact of an incident in that AI predicts the risk of the user's surroundings and future travel route and provides advance warning and personalized information, an SK Telecom official explained.

Pandemic-fighting AI will refine regional risk assessments through big data on floating populations, public disaster information, and social media information, and provide users with predictive information based on data such as schedules recorded on smartphones, flight, performance, and accommodation reservations, and regular travel routes.

Furthermore, we plan to develop general-purpose AI technologies, including a large-scale Korean language model, to enable AI to analyze news, summarize and deliver information desired by users, or accurately understand various disaster-related information requests and generate appropriate responses.

The pandemic-fighting AI will be developed as a "backend AI platform" rather than a separate service. Its core functions and technologies will be made available to developers, research institutes, and businesses via an Application Programming Interface (API), supporting app and service development. A website jointly operated by the three companies is also scheduled to be launched in the first half of next year.

The three companies agreed to continue their AI research collaboration, starting with AI to overcome pandemics and address societal challenges such as population aging and fine dust. They are open to collaboration across all areas of ICT, integrating their diverse capabilities and business areas, including 5G, smartphones, AI, and messaging platforms. The three companies stated that they are open to accepting any ICT company that wants to cooperate and join the alliance.

This three-company AI alliance is the second domestic AI alliance, following the launch of "AI One Team" in February. Currently, AI One Team members include KT, LG Uplus, LG Electronics, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Dongwon, Korea Investment & Securities, Hanyang University, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI).