LG’s telecom unit to spend $2.1 bn on transition into AX company

LG Uplus Corp., South Korea’s No. 3 mobile carrier, plans to invest up to 3 trillion won ($2.1 billion) in artificial intelligence and foster related businesses through cooperation with Big Tech companies such as Google to become an AI transformation (AX) company amid a saturated local telecom market.

The carrier of South Korea’s fourth-largest conglomerate LG Group on Thursday unveiled the ixi-O, an AI call agent, to accelerate the achievement of its goal. AI agents are a type of AI system that can understand and respond to customer requests without human intervention.

“We plan to spend a total of 2 trillion to 3 trillion won by 2028 with annual investments of 400 billion to 500 billion won in AI,” said LG Uplus CEO Hwang Hyeon Sik.

South Korean telecommunication service providers stepped up their efforts to transform into AI companies with LG Uplus’ larger rivals – SK Telecom Co. and KT Corp. – setting aside billions of dollars to invest in the sector.

ON-DEVICE AI

The ixi-O is an on-device AI agent with various features such as detecting voice phishing in real-time, recording and summarizing phone calls, converting voice conversation into text and other functions.

The on-device real-time voice phishing detection is the world’s first such technology, LG Uplus said.

The AI agent analyzes phone calls and warns users to hang up if risks of fraudulent calls are detected, according to the company. The function is expected to allow users to more precisely detect phishing as it is based on actual phone calls rather than phone numbers registered as those of scammers.

The ixi-O does not need any server to record and summarize the phone calls either.

“Most services work in the on-device environment,” said an LG Uplus official. “It is highly secure as the data is processed within the devices instead of going through servers.”

That compares with SK Telecom’s AI assistant, which is based on the cloud. The leading South Korean mobile carrier’s A. detects voice phishing with scam phone numbers.

ONLY FOR IPHONES FOR NOW

The ixi-O is currently only available for the Apple iPhone 14 and later models with iOS17 and later operating systems.

LG Uplus plans to introduce the ixi-O for Android smartphones in early 2025.

“We will release it in line with Samsung’s launch of a new Galaxy model next year,” said Hwang. “We aim to support Android devices in the first quarter of next year at the latest.”

Samsung Electronics Co. will unveil its new flagship Galaxy S25 series equipped with Qualcomm Inc.’s next-generation mobile application processor Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.