SKT has formed a global telco AI alliance and established a joint venture. With 1.3 billion subscribers, the telecommunications alliance is expected to pave the way for AI innovation.

SKT announced on the 20th that it held the '2nd Global Telco AI Roundtable' event at the TM Forum, a global telecommunications and technology alliance held in Copenhagen, Denmark on the 18th (local time).

On this day, SKT CEO Yoo Young-sang took an active role in ‘AI sales’ at a global forum where global telecommunications companies and tech companies gathered to expand and strengthen the ‘Global Telco AI Alliance’ on the 20th.

This event is a full-fledged follow-up to the inaugural general meeting of the Global Telco AI Alliance held at MWC2024 in Barcelona, Spain in February.

The 'Global Telco AI Alliance' was launched in November of last year and is a consortium of global telecommunications companies including SKT, Deutsche Telekom, e&, Singtel, and SoftBank. They plan to collaborate on the joint development of telco LLM and AI-related businesses.

The five companies announced that they have decided to actively cooperate by establishing a joint venture and finalizing a specific business plan. The joint venture plans to pursue business centered on: joint development and commercialization of Telco LLM; multilingual language learning and performance enhancement of LLM; and AI personalized services.

On this day, CEO Yoo said, “It is very meaningful to share the specific business plan and vision of the joint venture created by the ‘Global Telco AI Alliance’ at the ‘TM Forum’ event, an association of 800 global telecommunications companies and tech companies from 110 countries around the world,” and “This announcement will be an important milestone for AI innovation and growth.”

CEO Yoo continued, “The common goal of the alliance is to work together on AI-based business innovation and ultimately provide AI innovation experiences to customers around the world,” and “We want telecommunications companies to work together on disruptive innovations that go beyond telecommunications, such as AI data centers (AIDC) and ‘AI personal assistants.’”

CEO Yoo emphasized, “The more we integrate the technologies and capabilities of global telecommunications companies, the faster the pace of innovation will become,” and “The Global Telco AI Alliance will open up unprecedented paths for AI innovation, accelerating telecommunications companies’ adoption of AI and innovation in business models, and contributing to solving social problems.”

Lastly, he stated, “AI is driving innovation in our daily lives and creating opportunities across industries, but it also carries significant risks.” He added, “To develop the global AI ecosystem, a balanced effort is needed where companies work together to establish governance for safe AI while simultaneously achieving sustainable AI innovation.”

CEO Yoo's opening speech Next, Jeong Seok-geun, head of the Global/AI Tech Business Division, took the stage to share SKT's 'Telco LLM' development experience with global telecommunications companies and explained various cases where it was first applied to the Korean telecommunications industry, encouraging global telecommunications companies to participate in the alliance.

Next, executives from SKT, Deutsche Telekom, e&, and Singtel took the stage together and held a heated panel discussion to discuss the future vision of the 'Global Telco AI Alliance' and promote AI cooperation.

Jeong Seok-geun, Head of Global/AI Tech Business Division, Jan Hofmann, Head of AI Technology Center at Deutsche Telekom, Harrison Lung, Group Chief Strategy Officer at e&, and William Woo, Group Chief Information Technology Officer at Singtel, all took the stage to discuss various innovative ways telecommunications companies can achieve through AI.

In particular, when Eric Davis, head of SKT AI Tech Collaboration, came on stage and demonstrated a demo in which SKT's Telco LLM analyzed the content of a consultation between a customer and a counselor at a telecommunications company's customer center and summarized the content or even organized the tasks that the counselor should do after the consultation, the audience erupted in applause. This demonstrates a successful model for a specialized LLM in telecommunications, where AI assists with tasks that are difficult for counselors to handle quickly.

On the 19th (local time), the key executives of the five member companies of the alliance gathered together and signed a definitive agreement to establish a joint venture called the 'Global Telco AI Alliance', thereby establishing the first forward base for expanding the AI ecosystem of global telecommunications companies.

SKT CEO Yoo Young-sang said, “We will continue to be a game changer leading the global AI market together with domestic and foreign AI players,” and “We will become a truly global AI company through continuous and bold challenges together with the Global Telco AI Alliance.”