South Korea’s KT Corporation выделит 7 трлн вон (~$5.3 billion) to research and development of AI-based products over five years.
The company will focus on “personalised AI services”, including digital assistants, as well as solutions in education, healthcare and business.
KT currently has сервис бота-ассистента for work tasks and an app that turns a landline into an AI-powered device.
Under the corporation’s plan, AI revenue should reach 1 trillion won by 2025 (~$764 million).
“KT is a leading AI company in Korea, and we will position ourselves as a customer-focused service provider, applying our experience, capabilities, infrastructure and know-how to business,” said Son Je-ho, vice president of the AI division.
As part of the initiative, the company will modernize its own infrastructure and create a “supergiant AI technology”. The main emphasis will be on services rather than hardware. KT will design robots for product delivery, specialised logistics AI for manufacturing facilities and “agricultural bots”.
In addition, the corporation will launch an online medical service based on neural networks. It will use the AI Food Tag technology, which analyses dietary habits and nutrient content from photographs.
As a reminder, in 2018 the government of South Korea announced plans to invest $880 million in blockchain, AI and other innovative technologies.
In 2021, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated that South Korean and Japanese companies would help the United States compete with China in the field of artificial intelligence.