SK Telecom’s bet on air mobility, metaverse in full display at World IT Show

SK Telecom Co. is poised to show off its latest services at this year’s World IT Show slated for three days from April 20. 

At the largest info tech event in South Korea, visitors will be able to experience the telecom giant’s urban mobility technology, metaverse platform and more. 

AIR TAXI

At the SK Telecom booth, visitors can try out a simulation of the company’s Air Taxis, as its particular brand of urban air mobility (UAM) is named. A UAM is a three-dimensional urban air transportation system that connects ground and air transports.

US multinational investment bank Morgan Stanley forecast a few years ago that the global urban air mobility market will reach $1.5 trillion in size by 2040.

The telecom arm of South Korea’s third-largest chaebol is a member of a consultative body under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport formed two years ago. Its goal is to launch a tourism and public service route by 2025. 

The SK subsidiary plans to utilize this week’s event to inject enthusiasm into the country’s urban air mobility to expedite the speed of innovation. 

METAVERSE

Another key exhibit by SK Telecom is on its metaverse platform “ifland.”

On July 14 last year, the largest mobile operator in South Korea launched the metaverse platform, which it plans to grow into people’s choice of platform for business conferences and virtual tours.

The new platform debuted in February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. 

At the Korean conference slated to kick off on Wednesday, SK will highlight a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display, a type of VR headset that works as an enhanced display screen.

Ifland currently boasts 4.6 million subscribers and hopes to expand its services to at least 80 countries by the year’s end.

SK Telecom will also cater to K-pop lovers by creating music video and concert  contents in conjunction with Jump Studio. The Extended Reality (XR) production company of SK Telecom was made in partnership with Microsoft Corp.  

XR is an umbrella term which encapsulates Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR). 

AI CHIP ‘SAPEON’ 

SK Telecom will present a demo of how the homegrown AI chip processor SAPEON competes against existing GPUs. 

Last November, SK Telecom claimed to have entered what it dubs the SKT 2.0 era; in which AI will be the company's main growth driver. 

It has been incorporating AI technology in the T World subscription services and ifland. The telecom giant is also developing an AI assistant, tentatively named Apollo. 

The telecom giant wants to make Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) as its core business to serve the global market. 

Visitors who are more keen to experience at-home services can try out “NUGU multi-agent”, available in both English and Korean. 

AI speaker NUGU Candle is equipped with Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant technology by the namesake US tech conglomerate. 

SK Telecom’s AI-powered digital remastering technology Supernova will also be on display. Previously only available as a B2B service, the company will now make it available to individual consumers as well. 

Supernova recreates digital content by using an AI-powered colorization tool called DeOldify. The smartphone app made its global debut at the MWC trade show earlier this year.

Earlier this year, SK Group announced its plans to launch a consultative body to create synergy among its three subsidiaries, namely SK Telecom Co., SK Square Co., and SK Hynix Inc. 

SK Group announced the plan on the sidelines of CES 2022 in Las Vegas. 

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.