On March 24, SK Telecom (SKT) announced a strategic investment in and development collaboration with TogetherAI, a global AI optimization startup, to strengthen their AI platform development.
TogetherAI, founded in 2022 in California, is recognized for its rapid growth as a global AI company, recently successfully raising $350 million in Series B funding. It specializes in AI cloud and open-source technologies, offering services like inference, fine-tuning with AI open source, and low-cost GPU cluster development in collaboration with NVIDIA. Their clientele includes over 500,000 entities, such as Zoom, The Washington Post, and Salesforce, led by a team known for developing the innovative 'FlashAttention' algorithm in AI optimization.
Exploring Multi-Faceted AI Technology Enhancement
SK Telecom is exploring collaboration with TogetherAI as it prepares to enter the North American market with its global personal AI agent, Aster, focusing on LLM, GPU optimization, and other areas. This partnership leverages TogetherAI's capabilities in AI model training, fine-tuning, and efficient computing resource utilization.
SK Telecom aims to explore additional business collaboration opportunities and synergies throughout the AI domain, including their proprietary LLM, AidotX, and AI Data Centers.
By utilizing TogetherAI's GPU computation efficiency technology, 'Together Kernel Collection' and model compression and quantization technology 'QTIP,' SK Telecom can significantly reduce AI model sizes, effectively lowering initial GPU investment and operational costs.
The collaboration anticipates pooling resources to build SK Telecom's AI ecosystem across various domains, from AI models and platforms to AI data centers.
Strengthening Global AI Leadership through Strategic Investments
Over the past two years, SK Telecom has been actively investing and collaborating in AI models and platforms. Notably, they have teamed with Anthropic, an LLM leader; Perplexity, known for new search experiences; and Twelve Labs, leveraging AI video technology. These investments have significantly increased in value, highlighting SK Telecom's strategic acumen.
Anthropic marked SK Telecom's first major AI investment following its declaration to become a global AI company, with an investment of around 140 billion won. Collaboration spans from telecom LLM to Aster.
The telecom LLM, leveraging Anthropic’s generative AI 'Claude,' incorporates SK Telecom's Korean language data for specialized communication functions, aiding SK Telecom's customer service and enterprise AI offerings.
Perplexity, in which SK Telecom invested to enhance AI search competitiveness, collaborates on personal AI agent (PAA) development. It powers SK Telecom's domestic PAA, Aidot, and is also part of developing the global PAA, Aster. They are expanding AI services in Korea by offering one-year free subscriptions to their clients.
Twelve Labs, recognized in AI video by global tech majors like NVIDIA and Intel, became part of SK Telecom's 'K-AI Alliance' following swift investment by SK Telecom last year.
SK Telecom plans to solidify its presence in the global AI industry, expanding its AI value chain by establishing investment partnerships in the AI data center sector with companies like Lambda and Penguin Solutions. This aligns with its 'AI Pyramid 2.0' strategy unveiled at MWC25, responding to domestic and international AI industry trends.
"AI is transforming industries by opening new possibilities beyond optimizing existing processes,” said Vipul Ved Prakash, co-founder and CEO of TogetherAI. "The partnership with SK Telecom as crucial, expected to profoundly benefit the development of SK Telecom's new personal AI agent.
“This collaboration will enhance our AI platform capabilities and deliver innovative services to global AI customers," said Lee Jae-shin, head of SK Telecom’s AI Growth Strategy Unit. "We will continue to forge 'SK Telecom's unique AI applications' through ongoing investment and cooperation with AI startups.”
