SK Telecom, Samsung Electronics, and Kakao have decided to develop a joint AI service for overcoming the current global pandemic and introduce the service sometime in the first half next year.
Their service will utilize AI to analyze the user’s surroundings and predict potential dangers of his or her travel route in the future and provide warnings beforehand.
The three companies plan to expand their partnership towards the entire ICT (Information Communication Technology) field by converging their strengths and expertise such as 5G mobile network, smartphone and messenger platform. It is expected that they will be able to improve their competitive edge and differentiate themselves within the entire ICT field.
They signed off on a “partnership for collaborative research on AI” on Tuesday in order to contribute to public benefits and expand the AI ecosystem in South Korea.
By combining their strengths, they will pursue development of future AI technologies, studies on how AI can be utilized to solve social issues, and expansion of base for AI technologies.
They will first focus on development of AI technologies that will help South Korea overcome the current global pandemic early and contribute to public benefits. They also formed an “AI R&D consultative group”, which is made up of CTOs or executives who specialize in AI, in order to achieve their goal. They plan to expand the group’s size to a global AI alliance by inviting other South Korean businesses as well in the future.
Their “AI service” that will be launched in the first half will monitor and analyze dangerous situations related to COVID-19 in real time and suggest social distancing or recommend alternate routes to its users. It can also be used for other natural disastrous situations such as typhoon or heavy rainfall. Based on the fact that their service provides personalized information through AI, their service is different the current natural disaster alert systems that inform people about disasters only based on facts.

Photo Image
<President Park Seung-ki of Kakao Brain, CTO Kim Yoon of SK Telecom, and Director Woo Kyeong-koo of Samsung Electronics IT & Mobile Communications Division’s AI Team formed a partnership for collaborative research on AI on Tuesday.>

Their AI service accurately analyzes level of danger in different regions through big data on floating population, public information on natural disasters, and information from SNS. Based on data such as schedules that are recorded in smartphones, information related to reservations for airplane tickets, concerns, and lodging, and normal travel routes, it provides its predictions to its users.
The companies will also apply general-purpose AI technology that includes a Korean language model to their AI service so that the service can analyze news, summarize and send information that users are looking for, or understand requests for various information related to natural disasters and provide appropriate answers.
The companies will develop their service as a “back-end AI platform”. They will develop key functions and technologies as APIs (application programming interface) so that they can be available for developers, research institutions, and companies.
These APIs will be introduced through a separate site that will be managed by the three companies sometime in the first half next year.
Starting with their AI service, they will continue to work together on AI research to solve various social issues such as aging society and fine dust.
Yeo Min-soo, who is the co-CEO of Kakao, said that the his company will work closely with the other two companies to solve various social issues and that the three companies will solve issues through technology.
Ryu Young-sang, who is the head of SK Telecom’s MNO Business, emphasized that a partnership between three companies that represent South Korea’s ICT industry will contribute to building a social safety network in the country.
Noh Tae-moon, who is a president at Samsung Electronics, said that the partnership will provide fundamental technology components that can be used widely by industries and universities and that it is a project that will contribute to a growth of South Korea’s AI ecosystem in a long term.
Staff Reporter Kim, Siso | siso@etnews.com & Staff Reporter Kim, Yongjoo | kyj@etnews.com & Staff Reporter Park, Jisung | jisung@etnews.com