SEOUL, Aug. 13 (Yonhap) — SK Telecom Co., South Korea’s top wireless service provider, reported Sunday that it will invest US$100 million in the U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic in a partnership deal to expand its influence in the AI sector.
Anthropic is a San Francisco-based AI security and research company, with offerings such as the AI helper Claude. It was established in 2021 by ex-members of OpenAI, the operator of ChatGPT.
SK Telecom said it intends to collaborate with Anthropic to create an AI platform, as well as a large language model (LLM) that supports multiple languages, including Korean, English, German and Japanese.
Anthropic’s chief scientist and co-founder Jared Kaplan will oversee the development of a new LLM, SK Telecom said.
Based on the partnership, SK Telecom plans to strengthen its own LLM model to better and more efficiently serve customers’ needs.
Last month, SK Telecom signed an agreement with Deutsche Telekom, e& and Singtel to form the global Telco AI Alliance “to speed up AI transformation of the existing telco business and create new business opportunities with AI services.”
SK Telecom said the new collaboration with Anthropic is expected to assist in accelerating multilateral efforts to develop the Telco AI Platform.
“We aim to take a leading role in fostering an AI ecosystem together with global telecommunications companies, based on SKT’s AI technologies specialized in Korean and Anthropics’ global AI competence,” SK Telecom CEO Ryu Young-sang said.
This undated file photo provided by SK Telecom Co. shows its headquarters in Seoul. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
jaeyeon.woo@yna.co.kr
(END)