KT to build hyperscale AI cloud infrastructure

South Korea has paved the way to use artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors based on neural processing units (NPU) on cloud platforms to conduct R&D of hyper-scale AI.

KT Cloud on Tuesday said it achieved the nation's first commercialization of a cloud-based NPU infrastructure service using the AI chip atom of the domestic fabless startup Rebellion. Such NPUs boast faster calculation speed and lower power consumption than graphics processing units (GPU) of the US-based Nvidia and are cheaper than GPUs.

KT Cloud will offer this service to companies needing language and image processing.

"We plan to complete by 2025 a cloud-based AI service platform that applies domestically made AI semiconductors and enter the global market," CEO Yoon Dong-sik said.

The company this year is also participating in the government-run K-Cloud Project, which seeks to verify the application of homegrown NPUs to data centers. The venture will see spending of 100 billion won ($76.9 million) through 2025 to provide cloud-based AI services.

KT Cloud will build a data center and cloud platform of 8.9 petaflops (PF), with one PF equal to a quadrillion operations per second, and commercialize the hyper-scale AI Mi:dm of parent company KT Corp. based on domestically made AI chips.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com