KT and Microsoft will develop artificial intelligence models for Korea

South Korean mobile operator KT said Sunday it has formed a five-year, multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft to develop customized artificial intelligence solutions for Korea and build a technology innovation center.

KT said Friday at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, that the two parties who signed the agreement agreed to cooperate in the fields of artificial intelligence, cloud technologies and information technology, and to devote Microsoft’s resources to infrastructure and people areas.

“The partnership with Microsoft offers a significant opportunity not only for technological cooperation, but also to expand Korea’s AI base and support transformative innovation across industries and daily life,” said Kim Young-Shub, Chief Executive Officer of KT.

“By leveraging this strategic partnership, we aim to rapidly evolve into an AICT company with unique competitiveness in local and global markets,” he added, using the term to combine artificial intelligence with information and communications technology.

The Korean firm said the partnership was worth several trillion won, but the exact amount was not specified.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella welcomed their partnership.

“Together, we will help accelerate Korean organizations’ AI transformation in the private and public sectors and create new AI-powered experiences for millions of consumers,” Nadella said.

According to KT, progress will be made in five important areas with Microsoft in the next five years: developing customized artificial intelligence solutions for Korea, providing sovereign cloud solutions to Korea, establishing a service company specialized in artificial intelligence transformation, artificial intelligence R&D throughout Korea development of skills. and AICT transformation of KT.

KT said they will use GPT-4o and Microsoft’s Phi family of small language models and the company’s comprehensive high-quality dataset on Korean culture and industries for their envisioned AI solutions.

KT said the service models will be used to create industry-specific AI solutions for both internal and consumer applications, such as KT’s customer service chatbots, and for business-to-business customers across industry verticals to meet the needs of Korean consumers and businesses. .

The telecommunications giant will also leverage Microsoft Copilot Studio and Azure AI Studio to develop custom AI agents aimed at differentiating customer experiences.

Under the partnership, the two companies will launch a new service company specializing in artificial intelligence to help businesses in Asia seamlessly adopt AI technology. KT said they will also develop and launch Secure Public Cloud services, KT’s independent cloud solution built on Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty for Korean-regulated industries.

KT will also receive support from Microsoft in establishing a joint innovation center at its headquarters in central Seoul. The two companies will help businesses create, develop and prototype new AI solutions here.

“For the future of technology collaboration, research leaders and business visionaries from KT and Microsoft Research will explore high-impact research initiatives on network modernization, AI for healthcare, and AI adoption in industry, and further collaborate with leading academic institutions partnering with KT.” will do.” the company said.

To enhance the overall IT infrastructure, KT will migrate existing IT workloads, including mission-critical applications, to Microsoft Azure, as well as develop a new data platform and AI services powered by Microsoft Fabric and Azure OpenAI Service.

The company also said it plans to deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot for all KT employees and developers to improve the efficiency of the entire business. Microsoft will help KT equip its more than 19,000 employees with cloud and AI skills, the company added.

The latest deal between the two companies comes after they linked up in June.