SK Telecom announced on the 6th that it has invested in and signed strategic partnerships with the large language model (LLM) all-in-one solution company ‘Allganize’ and the AI-based anticancer drug prognosis prediction model development company for pets and humans, ‘ImpriMed’.
SKT invested approximately 5.4 billion KRW (4 million USD) in Allganize, an LLM all-in-one solution company, and about 4 billion KRW (3 million USD) in ImpriMed, an AI-based anticancer drug prognosis prediction model development company for pets and humans, securing equity stakes in both.
Allganize, founded in 2017, is a startup that supports work productivity innovation by quickly analyzing and summarizing corporate documents through a generative AI cognitive search solution based on large language models. It currently provides services to over 200 clients in the United States, Japan, and Korea.
ImpriMed, established in Silicon Valley, USA, in 2017, is an AI-based biotechnology startup. It possesses technology that analyzes accumulated cancer patient data using AI algorithms to recommend optimal anticancer treatments.
SKT plans to initially promote a joint business for an LLM-based AI app market through cooperation with Allganize. Allganize operates an LLM app market where companies can select AI apps tailored to their needs and immediately apply them to tasks such as legal, human resources, and marketing. For example, the market includes generative cognitive search apps that summarize vast corporate data into daily reports or find answers to complex customer questions from various internal documents while citing sources to reduce hallucination phenomena.
The two companies will enhance enterprise AI apps based on LLM by integrating SKT’s AI, cloud, and other technologies into the 100+ AI apps available in Allganize’s app market. Additionally, they plan to expand the business by linking with SKT’s upcoming ‘Intelligence Platform’.
Lee Chang-soo, CEO of Allganize, said, “Allganize, which has provided core AI technologies from LLM infrastructure to app markets to global companies, sees this cooperation as a great opportunity to lead the global AI ecosystem. Through synergy between SKT’s AI pyramid strategy and Allganize’s LLM infrastructure, middleware, service experience, and know-how, we plan to accelerate the spread of enterprise automation AI in the US and Japan.”
Furthermore, SKT plans to fully launch its AI healthcare business through collaboration with ImpriMed. The two companies intend to develop and advance models that predict prognosis by combining ImpriMed’s bio technology with SKT’s AI solutions such as vision AI, analyzing clinical data, genetic information, and imaging of cancer patients.
Notably, ImpriMed has realized a drug analysis service for pet dogs with blood cancer and currently provides solutions to over 200 animal hospitals in the US. SKT expects to establish a foothold for the US entry of its pet AI healthcare service ‘Excalibur’ by leveraging ImpriMed’s sales network. Im Seong-won, CEO and co-founder of ImpriMed, stated, “SKT highly valued our efforts over the past five years to develop and commercialize personalized cancer treatments for pets, and we look forward to enhancing AI technologies with SKT to improve treatment outcomes for more patients.”
Meanwhile, with this partnership, the two companies have joined the ‘K-AI Alliance’ led by SKT. The alliance has expanded to 16 companies, including Allganize, ImpriMed, Sapeon, Bespin Global, Moloco, Conan Technology, Sweet, Phantom AI, TwoArt, C-MES, Machinarax, Scatter Lab, Friendly AI, Gauss Labs, Onmind, and Persona AI.
In SKT’s AI pyramid strategy announced last September, the ‘K-AI Alliance’ is planned to play a key role as a pillar of ‘collaboration.’ SKT intends to actively expand the K-AI Alliance, composed of small but strong companies, to lead the global AI market and seek global expansion opportunities through various collaborations, thereby expanding the AI ecosystem. All 16 members of the K-AI Alliance will participate in the ‘SK Tech Summit 2023’ held at COEX on the 16th and 17th, introducing their technologies and services and exploring cooperation with SK ICT affiliates and promising AI companies.
Ha Min-yong, Chief Digital Officer (CDO) of SKT, said, “As a global AI company, SKT considers the role of the K-AI Alliance very important to promote AI transformation across various industries through AI technologies. We will continue to expand and strengthen cooperation with domestic and international AI players to revitalize the AI ecosystem in Korea.”
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