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| I.P. Park, left, chief technology officer of LG Electronics, poses with Jeon Hong-beom, center, head of KT's AI/DX Convergence Business Group, and Lee Sang-min, head of LG Uplus' Future and Converged Division pose for a picture after agreeing to co-develop AI technology at KT's headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. / Courtesy of KT |
By Baek Byung-yeul
LG Electronics, KT and LG Uplus have teamed up to research artificial intelligence (AI) technology to co-develop core technologies in the sector and find new business opportunities, they said Wednesday.
Executives of the three companies gathered at KT's headquarters in central Seoul and held a kick-off ceremony. The joint research team will share their experiences and technologies in the AI sector, seek ways to connect their AI services with each other and cooperate to resolve social issues utilizing the technology.
"The three companies will be able to create synergy with their AI technologies. LG Uplus and KT have their superiorities in the sector based on fifth-generation (5G) and data technologies, and LG Electronics has developed its knowhow in services related to AI technology," the three companies said in a joint statement.
With this agreement, LG Electronics and LG Uplus also joined the industry-academic collaboration alliance called AI One Team. The alliance includes KT, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Hanyang University and Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings.
In conjunction with the AI One Team, the three companies will work on nurturing talented personnel in the AI sector as well.
As a first move of the joint project, KT and LG Electronics will seek ways to connect the former's AI platform GiGA Genie to the latter's AI-based voice recognition platform LG ThinQ. Also, the three will carry out another plan to connect IoT services provided by KT and LG Uplus to LG Electronics' home appliances.
They added the three companies will develop a forecasting model to prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. The two telecommunications companies KT and LG Uplus will use their mobile data to examine human mobility patterns and apply the data to LG Electronics' home appliances to increase accuracy of information.
With AI adoption on the rise, LG Electronics has also been accelerating its effort to improve its capabilities in the technology field. It has been operating five AI research labs in locations including in Seoul, Silicon Valley of the U.S. and Toronto in Canada.
I.P. Park, chief technology officer of LG Electronics, said the research project will become a driving force to upgrade competitiveness in the AI sector.
"From the perspective of open innovation, corporations, schools and research institutes will cooperate in various ways to upgrade the country's competitiveness in the AI sector and create visible outcomes," he said in a statement.
