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After exchanging stocks worth 300 billion won in October 2019, the department is solidifying cooperation. The two companies agreed to share core assets such as artificial intelligence (AI), environment, society, governance (ESG), and intellectual property rights (patents), and further share them with the society.
No matter how much stakes are mixed, it is unusual to share core assets with Korea’s leading tech companies and open some of them to the outside.
It is interpreted as a measure to prepare for the era when the leadership of IT shifts from networks and platforms to data and AI. The strategic relationship between SK Telecom and Kakao is also read with the intention of gaining an edge in the competition with KT, which has formed an AI team such as Naver, LG Electronics, LG Uplus, the largest platform company and AI technology company in Korea.
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◇ Top-down cooperation… Up to 30 billion ESG fund composition
SKT MNO project representative Yoo Young-sang and Yeo Min-soo, joint representative of Kakao, recently signed an’AI·ESG·Intellectual Property Cooperation MOU’ to spread the good influence of ICT.
Business Representative Yoo and Co-CEO Female met once a month through the’Synergy Council’ after the exchange of shares of the two companies 1 year and 5 months ago, and personally, it is said that they are intimate enough to tilt a drink.
In addition to the’Synergy Council’, SK Telecom and Kakao are operating the’AI R&D Council’, in which technical staff from both companies participate. SKT CTO Kim Yoon, CEO Park Seung-gi, Kakao Brain, and Woo Gyeong-gu, Senior Vice President of Sasung Electronics’ AI Team, will participate.
An executive at Kakao said, “SKT President Park Jung-ho proposed AI hyper-cooperation, and Chairman Tae-won Choi recommends Chairman Kim Beom-soo as vice-chairman of the Korean Sang-Ang.
It is said that the emergence of an ESG joint fund with a scale of 20 to 30 billion won was due to the will of Chairman Tae-won Choi, who is interested in realizing social values, and Chairman Beom-soo Kim, the largest donor king in Korea. This fund is the first ESG fund in Korea. Companies that recycle plastic to solve social and environmental problems and pursue financial performance at the same time can be the target of support. It is operated by Kakao Ventures, and SKT supports its accelerator program.
◇Infrastructure, data, language model AI joint development… Discuss patent sharing
AI technology determines the future competitiveness of IT companies, but enormous R&D costs are required. Accordingly, SKT and Kakao are collaborating to jointly develop an AI engine and implement the service according to the characteristics of the company.
Both companies’ AI technology development takes place in all areas, including infrastructure, data, and language models. Of course, they share their AI learning data in the form of text, audio, and images. It will also promote ways to disclose jointly developed AI technology to academia and start-ups.
Cooperate in the field of intellectual property rights such as technology patents. It was decided to refrain from disputes between intellectual property rights as much as possible and establish a joint intellectual property pool for future business fields such as AI, platform, and media. Patents that can be opened to the outside are planned to be open to SMEs and venture companies for the public benefit.
The two companies said it was in the form of an MOU right now, so it would be confusing, but sooner or later a specific number such as a few open patents would come out.
However, sharing AI and patents does not mean that business competition will disappear. Competition in the market, such as Tmap Mobility competing with Kakao Mobility and Flow competing with Melon, remains. An official from SK Telecom said, “There may be limited areas that can be shared with each other on the patent side, and business competition will proceed fairly.”
Minsu Yeo, Co-CEO of Kakao, said, “I think it is very meaningful that two big tech companies share core assets related to AI, ESG, and intellectual property rights and share them with society. I will try to solve this problem.”
Yoo Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom’s MNO business, said, “We hope that the core ICT assets of SK Telecom and Kakao will be the welcome to our society. I will use it.”