Three domestic information and communication technology (ICT) companies, such as Kakao, SK Telecom, and Samsung Electronics, have joined together through artificial intelligence (AI) initial cooperation to contribute to social safety.
Kakao, SK Telecom, and Samsung Electronics announced on the 22nd that they have decided to cooperate with the development of AI technology in the pandemic era.
The three companies announced that they will jointly promote the expansion of AI technology base by gathering the core competencies of each company through this AI alliance ▲ future AI technology development ▲ research on how to use AI to solve social difficulties.
In particular, considering that Corona 19 is a critical point of having a serious impact on the national economy and society, first of all, we decided to proceed with cooperation with a focus on early coping with Corona and developing AI for public benefit.
To this end, the three companies formed the’AI R&D Council’. Each company’s CTO (Chief Technology Officer) or AI expert executive level participates in the council to promote joint development. In the future, we plan to consider expanding the scale to the level of global AI alliance (alignment) as well as participation of other domestic operators.
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At CES2020 in Las Vegas, USA in January, SKT CEO Park Jeong-ho told Korean ICT companies such as Samsung Electronics that the three-company cooperation was “a time when cooperation is necessary rather than competition between domestic companies in order for Korea to take the lead in the global AI war” It started by emphasizing the need for initial cooperation.
Kakao, SK Telecom, and Samsung Electronics have advanced AI technology over the years based on their respective strengths such as mobile communication services, smart devices, and messenger platforms. After the three companies decided that combining these capabilities could raise the domestic AI technology to the world’s best level in a short period of time, the cooperation proceeded in a flash.
Accordingly, a joint working group was formed in March, and a CTO-level workshop was regularly operated on a bi-weekly basis, and the working planning/development team held online meetings from time to time to discuss key cooperation tasks and discuss specific development directions.
The first joint work of the three AI alliance is’AI overcoming pandemic’… Opening of core technologies and functions
The first joint work that the three companies will unveil in the first half of next year is’Ai Overcoming Pandemic’. This AI identifies the corona risk situation around the current location in real time → analyzes the risk level → recommends social distancing to users or guides a detour route. It can be applied to disaster situations such as typhoons and heavy rains in the future.
Within a large category, it can be viewed as a disaster notification, but it is different from the existing disaster notification, which mainly informs the fact of occurrence in that AI predicts the risk of the user’s surroundings and future paths, warns in advance, and provides personalized information.
‘Pandemic Overcoming AI’ refines regional risk through big data of floating population, public disaster information, and SNS information, and is based on data such as schedules recorded on smartphones, flight tickets, performances, accommodation reservation information, and normal travel routes. Predictive information is provided to users.
For example, based on public information that a corona confirmed from a building near the Euljiro entrance area in Seoul, AI analyzed that the surrounding floating population at the time was 800, and 20% of them moved to Yeoksam-dong, and evaluated the risk at the entrance to Euljiro (上), Yeoksam-dong is analyzed as middle. Accordingly, users who commute to Euljiro are recommended to use their own car, and users who reserved a movie theater in Yeoksam-dong are guided to distance.
A, a housewife in her 60s in Eunpyeong-gu, is informed by a messenger that “the surrounding 1,500 households have been blacked out due to a strong typhoon,” and asks an AI secretary for emergency relief for her husband who is receiving respiratory assistance from heart disease. While waiting for rescue, the smart watch transmits real-time health status such as heart rate to medical institutions.
In addition, by applying general-purpose artificial intelligence technology including a large Korean language model to the’Pandemic Overcome AI’, the artificial intelligence analyzes the news and summarizes and delivers the information users want, or accurately understands various disaster-related information requests to generate appropriate answers. We plan to evolve so that we can do it
Rather than creating a separate service with’Pandemic Overcome AI’, the three companies will develop it as a’Backend AI Platform’. It is a form that opens core functions and technologies to the public such as developers, research institutes, and companies in the form of an API (application programming interface) and supports app/service development. It is scheduled to be released in the first half of next year on a separate site that the three companies will operate together.
Solving social challenges such as corona and aging, joint development of AI services, etc.
The three companies decided to continue AI research cooperation to solve social challenges such as social aging and fine dust, starting with’AI overcoming pandemic’. The position is that the possibility of cooperation is open in all areas of ICT, such as converging various capabilities and business areas of each company such as 5G, smartphone, AI, and messenger platforms. The three companies also revealed that if there is an ICT company that wants to cooperate and join the alliance, they will be able to work together with an open mind.
Kakao Co-CEO Yeo Min-soo said, “We will work closely with great partners to solve social challenges, and we will continue to contribute to solving social problems with technology.”
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Yoo Young-sang, CEO of SKT’s MNO business, said, “This initial AI cooperation between leading domestic ICT companies will not only serve as an important momentum for Korea to take the lead in fierce global competition, but also contribute to building a social safety net in Korea.”
Samsung Electronics President Roh Tae-moon said, “This cooperation is meaningful in that it is a project that contributes to the growth of the domestic AI ecosystem in the long term by providing basic technology components that can be widely used in industry and academia, starting from solving the social challenge of overcoming the pandemic. Is big,” he said.