SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM, hereinafter referred to as “SKT”) held a press
conference at MWC Barcelona 2022 to announce that the company will enter
the global market with ‘Next Big Tech,’ which refers to its three key future
leading technologies namely metaverse, AI semiconductor and quantum
cryptography.
SKT’s CEO Ryu Young-sang, who hosted the event said, “2022 will mark the
first year in which ‘Next Big Tech,’ developed with our extensive knowhow
accumulated over the three years after commercializing the 5G network, makes
inroads into the overseas markets.”
Metaverse
SKT will aggressively expand its global presence by launching its metaverse
service Ifland in 80 different countries this year.
In Korea, Ifland is rapidly migrating people’s real lives into the virtual
world. It has become a popular venue for social gatherings as well as a
platform for businesses seeking new ways to communicate with their customers.
To shape Ifland into an innovative global service, SKT will further enhance
user convenience through service upgrades including opening up of its platform
to enable users to provide diverse content, and creating a marketplace applied
with crypto technologies (NFT/Blockchain).
Going forward, the company plans to evolve Ifland and AI Agent into a single
AIVERSE service by interconnecting content, economic system, and back-end
infrastructure of the two services.
AI Semiconductor
SKT unveiled its plans to become a global top-tier AI semiconductor company
by releasing a follow-up model of its AI semiconductor Sapeon X220 late this
year or early 2023.
Growing by 44% per year, the global AI semiconductor market is expected to
reach KRW 40 trillion by 2025.
Early this year, the company secured a bridgehead to advance into the global
market by establishing Sapeon Inc. in the U.S., through joint investment with
SK Square and SK hynix.
This year SKT will work closely with Sapeon Inc. to apply its semiconductor
chip to many different industries including manufacturing, security, media and
automotive.
Through these efforts, SKT expects Sapeon Inc. to become a company with a
cumulative revenue of KRW 2 trillion and an enterprise value of KRW 10 trillion
by 2027.
Quantum Cryptography
SKT announced its plans to strengthen its competitiveness in the field of
quantum cryptography, which is being applied to wider areas due to the
increased importance of security brought by the diversification of smart
devices.
Together with ID Quantique, a global leading quantum technology company it
acquired in 2018, SKT has secured world-class security technologies and created
various use cases in Europe, North America and Asia.
In addition, the company is leading the quantum cryptography ecosystem in
Korea by applying QKD to 221 kilometers of its 5G backbone network in 2019, and
launching the world’s first QRNG-powered 5G smartphone ‘Galaxy A Quantum’ with
Samsung Electronics in 2020.
Based on strong technological capability and market competitiveness, SKT has
secured over 250 customers and partners, more than doubling its sales after the
acquisition of ID Quantique.
This year, the company plans to increase sales of the existing products such
as QRNG and QKD, while expanding into new areas such as blockchain and quantum
cryptography solutions.
“SKT will become the world’s No.1 quantum cryptography company by partnering
with companies in telecommunication, security and IT industries,” said CEO Ryu
Young-sang.
Redefining Five Key Business Groups
Today, CEO Ryu also talked about SKT’s recent rearrangement of its business
into five different groups, namely Mobile & Fixed Telecommunications,
Media, Enterprise, AIVERSE (AI+Universe), and Connected Intelligence, targeted
at accelerating its progress in global expansion while sustaining stable
growth.
SKT will continue to enhance its competitiveness in mobile & fixed
telecommunications based on its 5G leadership; and grow the media business by
expanding its platform competitiveness to the overall value chain including
content, T commerce and advertising.
In the enterprise business, the company will keep expanding the scale of its
data centers, while advancing 5G MEC-based cloud services, AI-based IoT and
smart factory. It will also promote the growth of the AIVERSE business by
evolving T Universe, metaverse and AI agent into new AI services that provide a
new level of experience, while actively pursuing its Connected Intelligence
business to realize seamless connectivity for future devices like UAM vehicles,
robots and self-driving cars.
In particular, SKT announced that it will promote robot-related business in
full swing by leveraging its rich stock of AI technologies. The company decided
to invest in CMES, a leading AI vision robotics company, to jump into the AI robot-based
logistics business.
Furthermore, CEO Ryu announced that AI will be applied to SKT’s overall ESG
activities under the ‘Barrier Free AI’ project, which aims to create a
barrier-free society with AI.
SKT is using AI to better support seniors and the socially weak. For
instance, the company is providing ‘Goyohan M,’ a service that facilitates
communication between deaf taxi drivers and passengers based on voice AI and
vision AI; and ‘Now I See,’ an app built with voice AI to enable the visually
impaired to identify objects and letters via voice.
The increased adoption of Sapeon, which reduces power usage, coupled with
the expansion of Ifland, which reduces the use of diverse resources by
replacing the real world, is expected to help boost SKT’s efforts in achieving
net-zero emissions.
“With the launch of metaverse, AI semiconductor and quantum cryptography in
overseas markets, we will expand our global presence to maintain leadership
into the next-generation ICT market,” said Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SKT.
“We will continue to introduce breakthrough technologies and services that can
create differentiated value in the global market.”