Testing Rebellion NPU on Services Like A.Dot Call Summary
Domestic LLM Powered by Domestic NPU
"Strengthening Independence of the AI Ecosystem"
On June 25, SK Telecom announced that it is conducting tests with AI semiconductor startup Rebellion to apply Rebellion's NPU (Neural Processing Unit) to SKT's major AI services.
An NPU is a chip specifically designed for implementing AI and is considered an essential semiconductor for AI. It can process thousands of operations simultaneously, making it primarily used for deep learning. Deep learning refers to a technology in which computers combine and analyze external data to learn autonomously, and the advent of deep learning has significantly improved AI performance.
SKT and Rebellion are testing servers equipped with the data center AI semiconductor 'Atom (ATOM)' for use in A.Dot call summary, PASS spam filtering, PASS financial assistant, and Excalibur.
Depending on the test results, the companies aim to apply 'Atom Max (ATOM-Max)', a large-scale AI inference semiconductor and an enhanced version of Atom, to these services within this year. Based on the results, SKT plans to continue expanding the adoption of Rebellion NPU servers in the future.
The two companies explained that testing and considering the commercialization of Rebellion's AI semiconductor for SKT's AI services is meaningful in terms of achieving independence for the domestic AI ecosystem. The A.Dot call summary is based on SKT's proprietary large language model (LLM), 'A.DotX (A.X)'. If the service is provided through Atom, a domestic AI semiconductor, it would realize sovereign AI, where a domestic LLM is served through a domestic NPU.
The companies plan to continue expanding the scope of their collaboration, starting with this test. Lee Sangmin, Head of Growth Business at SKT, said, "As competition in AI technology between countries intensifies, strengthening the independence of the domestic AI ecosystem is a crucial factor that can determine not just the competitiveness of individual companies, but that of the nation as a whole. SKT will continue to work to strengthen the capabilities of the domestic AI ecosystem, including AI data centers, LLMs, and AI semiconductors."
Park Sunghyun, CEO of Rebellion, stated, "The fact that a domestic AI semiconductor can now be applied to SKT's domestic LLM-based services is not only a testament to technical maturity but also an important milestone in achieving independence for the domestic AI ecosystem. Rebellion will continue to contribute to Korea's rise as one of the world's top three AI powers by providing stable and energy-efficient AI infrastructure."
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