SK Telecom to host global AI hackathon in Seoul with OpenAI

South Korea's SK Telecom Co. will hold next month an artificial intelligence contest with OpenAI, the American information and communications technology company that developed ChatGPT.

Focusing on boosting its AI alliance, the telecom titan last month signed an "AI alliance" agreement with global counterparts and announced on Sunday investment of $100 million (134.2 billion won) in Anthropic, a San Francisco-based generative AI company.

SK Telecom on Wednesday announced its hosting next month of Prompter Day Seoul 2023, a global AI hackathon, or a social coding event that attracts computer programmers and others interested to improve on or build new software programs, to select developers proficient in ChatGPT.

Participants can receive mentoring support from AI experts, with the event's prize money being a combined 100 million won. Winners of the Excellence Award or higher will be exempt from the first round of screening when applying for jobs at SK Telecom.

The hackathon's online preliminaries are from September 16-17 and the in-person finals from Sept. 23-24 at the business center Dream Plus Gangnam in Seoul. The latter event will feature programs such as contests, awards ceremonies, speeches by panelists and networking opportunities.

Industry watchers are following SK Telecom's partnership with OpenAi, saying the event will jumpstart collaboration between both sides.

Under its goal of becoming an AI company, SK Telecom is developing in-house hyperscale AI and advancing its technology and services by collaborating with global companies. A leading example of its international tie-ups is the company's $100 million investment in Anthropic, which was launched by OpenAI's co-founders, to jointly develop a multilingual large language model.  

SK Telecom is also working on an AI platform with overseas telecom giants like Deutsche Telekom of Germany, e& of the United Arab Emirates and Singtel of Singapore.

"Based on our reinforced partnership with OpenAI, we will strive to invigorate the global AI ecosystem," SK Telecom CEO Ryu Young-sang said.

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leeswoo@hankyung.com