As the Lee Jae-myung government, which strengthens 'sovereign AI (building and operating AI systems based on domestic data and AI technology without relying on foreign cloud services or AI technology),' took office, telecommunications companies are putting all their effort into developing their own artificial intelligence (AI) technology. This is to gain a favorable position in the bidding for the 'Korean-style (K)-AI' project the new government is promoting to enhance sovereign AI. It is said that the telecommunications companies, which have focused on collaborating with overseas big tech companies to secure AI technological competitiveness rather than developing their own technology, may be modifying their AI business strategies.
◇ Telecommunications companies gambling on government-supported 'K-AI' project bids
According to the industry on the 29th, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus, the three major telecommunications companies, are participating in the 'Independent AI Foundation Model' project. All of the consortiums that include the three telecommunications companies recently passed the preliminaries. Among the 15 teams (consortiums) that have participated in this project, only 10 consortiums are reportedly advancing to the finals.
The Independent AI Foundation Model project promoted by the government is a project to create an AI foundation model using domestic technology. This project is considered a key project for sovereign AI emphasized by the Lee Jae-myung government. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to select five consortiums next month to provide various government support, and in two years, it is expected that only two teams will remain after performance evaluations.
First, the five consortiums to be selected next month will each receive 1,000 graphics processing unit (GPU) units, support for annual data co-purchases worth 10 billion won, and support for data construction and processing expenses ranging from 3 billion to 5 billion won each year. Additionally, if they attract outstanding AI researchers from abroad, they can receive support for labor costs and research expenses of up to 2 billion won per year. However, each consortium must ensure that the performance of the independent AI foundation developed through this project meets at least 95% compared to global AI models released in the last six months. The developed AI model will be called a 'K-AI model,' and the companies that develop it will be allowed to use the title 'K-AI corporations.' A representative from the telecommunications industry noted, "Since the government is directly certifying us as representative K-AI corporations in Korea and providing support for GPU and data costs as well as labor costs, the telecommunications companies that have declared their transformation into AI companies have no choice but to stake everything on this project."
◇ "I am the protagonist of sovereign AI"... Telecommunications companies that changed their tune with the government transition
In fact, the three telecommunications companies that have declared their intent to participate in this project are recently unveiling upgraded Korean-style large language models (LLM) and are promoting that they have strengths in sovereign AI. The most proactive telecommunications company is SK Telecom. On the 28th, SK Telecom unveiled three types of inference-specialized language models with 7 billion (7B) parameters, developed in collaboration with Krafton. This was just three days after they revealed 'A.X 3.1', based on 34 billion (34B) parameters, to the open-source community Hugging Face on the 24th. Earlier, on the 3rd of this month, they also introduced 'A.X (adot X) 4.0', a Korean-language specialized LLM with Korean processing capabilities, as open source.
KT also released the open source of its self-developed LLM 'Mid:Um 2.0' through the AI developer platform Hugging Face on the 3rd. On the 21st, it was announced that 'Mid:Um 2.0' would be used in the AI platform for supporting court operations being developed by the Supreme Court, and on the 28th, it was disclosed that the same model would be used in the generative AI platform development project pursued by Gyeonggi Province. LG Uplus announced on the 21st that it would be the first among domestic telecommunications companies to offer its self-developed sLLM 'ixi-GEN' on the 'Amazon Bedrock Marketplace,' highlighting that its technology has global competitiveness.
Within and outside the industry, there are stories that telecommunications companies, which had focused on collaboration with foreign big tech companies and had been neglecting their own AI technology development, have completely revised their AI business strategies in line with the new government's policy direction. Previously, telecommunications companies judged that raising their AI technological capabilities to the level of global big tech companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft (MS), and Google in a short period was impossible and chose to collaborate with overseas firms. KT has been developing a Korean-style AI by investing trillions of won in collaboration with MS, while SK Telecom invested $100 million (approximately 139.1 billion won) in the American company Anthropic, dubbed the second OpenAI, for joint AI development. An industry insider commented, "While Naver and LG have been focusing on developing their own AI technology through company-wide efforts, SK Telecom and KT concentrated on AI collaboration with global big tech firms. The AI technology capabilities of the two telecommunications companies are not bad, but the technology gap with domestic sovereign AI companies such as Naver or LG has widened while they have been distracted by overseas collaborations over the past few years."
Lee Jong-ho, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University (former Minister of Science and ICT), stated, "It is true that the AI technological capabilities of telecommunications companies are lagging behind compared to Naver and LG," adding, "While technology cooperation with overseas companies may be a fast track for rapid development, the most important factor for sustained growth is securing AI talent. Companies like Naver and LG, which possess a group of personnel with years of experience in enhancing their own technologies, have a competitive edge over telecommunications companies, which lack such experience."