SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, e& Group, Singtel, and SoftBank announced plans to forge ahead with the establishment of a joint venture to bolster the use of AI.
SK Telecom’s Chairman Chey Tae-won, SK Telecom’s CEO Ryu Young-sang, Deutsche Telekom’s CEO Tim Höttges, and DT’s Board Member for Technology & Innovation, Claudia Nemat, e& Group’s Group CEO Hatem Dowidar, Singtel Group’s CEO Yuen Kuan Moon, and SoftBank’s CISO Tadashi Iida attended the meeting to JV.
The objective of this collaborative effort is to develop Large Language Models (LLMs) tailored specifically to the requirements of telecommunications companies (telcos). These advanced models are envisioned to enhance customer interactions through digital assistants and chatbots, thereby revolutionizing customer service within the telco industry.
A key focus of the joint venture is the creation of multilingual LLMs optimized for languages including Korean, English, German, Arabic, and Japanese. Additional languages will be incorporated based on agreements among the founding members.
With aspirations to cater to a global customer base of approximately 1.3 billion spanning across 50 countries, the joint venture aims to deploy innovative AI applications customized to the needs of the members of Global Telco AI Alliance (GTAA) in their respective markets.
Notably, Deutsche Telekom, with 250 million subscribers across 12 countries including Germany and the U.S., e& Group, serving 169 million subscribers across 16 countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, and the Singtel Group, boasting 770 million subscribers across 21 countries, are among the key players driving this initiative.
The establishment of the JV is slated to be finalized within the current year, marking a significant milestone in the convergence of AI and telecommunications.
By facilitating the swift and efficient deployment of high-quality generative AI models, these telco-specific LLMs are poised to accelerate the AI transformation of various telco business operations and services, notably in customer service.
Currently undergoing optimization, the LLMs are being fine-tuned using telcos’ customer service data to ensure proficiency in addressing telco-specific queries. This targeted approach ensures that the LLMs grasp the unique language and intricacies inherent in telecom operations, thereby paving the way for elevated, personalized, and efficient customer experiences.
