[MWC On-site] AI Technology Unveiled, Global Collaboration... 'SKT Catching Two Rabbits'

Over 70,000 Visitors Gather
Collaboration on Telco LLM Development

SK Telecom announced on the 3rd that it attracted a total of 70,000 visitors by participating in the mobile exhibition 'MWC 2024,' held over four days from the 26th to the 29th of last month (local time) in Barcelona, Spain.

SK Telecom booth set up at the MWC exhibition hall
[Photo by SKT]

SKT set up an exhibition hall in Hall 3 of the international exhibition center, where major global big tech companies gathered. This place was bustling with visitors eager to experience advanced technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI).

SKT showcased various application cases based on the 'telecom-specialized LLM (TelcoLLM),' including ▲customer support AI contact center (AICC) ▲virtual agents implemented with chatbots ▲AI-based spam and smishing filtering systems.

They also exhibited key technologies related to AI-based 6G simulators, Open RAN, AI data centers, and a full-scale urban air mobility (UAM) vehicle model produced in collaboration with Joby Aviation.

The exhibit that attracted the most attention from visitors was a large kinetic LED display illustrating SKT's journey to becoming an AI company through the 'Global Telco AI Alliance (GTAA),' a coalition of major global telecom operators. The large kinetic LED, placed at the main entrance of the exhibition hall, moved like waves according to the video content, drawing significant interest from many visitors.

Additionally, SKT announced the establishment of a joint venture on-site with global telecom companies such as Deutsche Telekom, e& (E&), Singtel, and SoftBank, and achieved business collaboration results with various global AI companies.

On the opening day, SKT held the founding general meeting of the 'Global Telco AI Alliance (GTAA)' at its exhibition hall, attended by SK Chairman Chey Tae-won, SKT CEO Yoo Young-sang, and top executives from Deutsche Telekom, e& (E&), Singtel, SoftBank, among others. They signed a contract to establish a joint venture for the joint development and business cooperation of TelcoLLM.

These five companies plan to actively develop Telco LLM through this joint venture. The goal is to develop a multilingual LLM supporting various languages worldwide, starting with five languages: Korean, English, Japanese, German, and Arabic. The joint venture is scheduled to be established within this year.

In addition, during the MWC period, SKT initiated cooperative projects by forming partnerships with AI-based startups such as Humane and Perplexity.

Park Kyu-hyun, Vice President and Head of Digital Communications at SKT, said, "Through this MWC exhibition, we were able to introduce to visitors the direction SKT is pursuing toward becoming a 'global AI company.'"