KT teams up with Amazon to bolster B2B generative AI

BARCELONA -- KT Corp., South Korea’s leading telecom services provider, said on Thursday it has signed a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bolster customized mobile and generative artificial intelligence services for corporate customers.

Under the partnership, KT will officially join AWS’ private wireless network to develop generative AI based on Amazon Bedrock, a cloud service designed to integrate generative AI with applications.

The Korean mobile and internet service company plans to offer cloud-based private 5G network services tailored to companies, schools and public institutions to help them introduce AI assistants, AI agents and AI platforms for banking services.

The move comes as KT is aiming to strengthen its AI capabilities to transform into an AI-focused IT company.

“KT is second to none in the telecommunications field, but weak in IT capabilities,” its Chief Executive Kim Young-shub said on Tuesday at a news conference on the sidelines of MWC Barcelona 2024, the largest annual mobile tech show.

“We need to provide communication technology (CT) integrated with IT. We will completely change our DNA to focus on AI.”

This year, it will hire about 1,000 AI and ICT experts at all levels from the rank and file and executives and start to add AI skills to the items of performance review and compensation for employees.

“We will be reborn as an AICT company by integrating AI with communication technology (CT),” he added.

To that end, KT plans to upgrade its generative AI platform “Gen.AIDU” for internal use, utilizing its super-giant AI large language model (LLM) Mi:dm, OpenAI’s GPT and Meta’s Llama, an LLM.  

Gen.AIDU is designed to develop an application programming interface (API), where computer programs or components communicate with each other.

To further bolster its AI capabilities, Kim said KT will continue to pursue strategic partnerships with Big Tech companies and startups.

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

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.