SK Telecom's elite team is speeding up development of the next-generation model, A.X K3, to be used in its in-house AI foundation model project, known as Dokpamo. It is also working in parallel to validate the Everyone's AI service, which is due for a beta release in October, showing it is focused on advancing AI technology even during the Chuseok holiday.

Industry sources said on Sept. 26 that SKT is reviewing the A.X K3 model architecture for the third-stage evaluation of the Dokpamo project. It is running pre-training recipe tests that combine data composition and training methods. Based on know-how gained in developing A.X K1 and K2, SKT is optimising the training environment and focusing on using graphics processing units and data efficiently.

The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to provide about 1,000 Nvidia B200 GPUs per team in the second half of this year to three elite teams, including SKT, LG AI Research and Upstage, that passed the second evaluation of Dokpamo. The support has expanded from about 768 units in the first half.

SKT is reviewing ways to efficiently operate the government-supported GPUs together with its own infrastructure. It is also holding weekly remote meetings with Nvidia and continuing technical cooperation needed for the model development process. SKT has used datasets and training tools provided by Nvidia since the development stage of its initial model, A.X K1.

The industry sees usability that can be applied in real industrial and service settings as a key evaluation factor in the third Dokpamo assessment. With user evaluations newly introduced in the previous second assessment, practical usability and how much the public can feel the impact are expected to become more important in the third round as well.

SKT is also continuing validation and advancement work on the Everyone's AI service, which is set for a beta release next month. Everyone's AI is being developed with the goal of an AI agent that not only answers users' questions but also carries out follow-up actions such as information searches and applications and reservations.

SKT has set its own evaluation standards to check whether each function works as intended in a real service environment. The core is an "AI grader". The evaluation AI grades service results and finds shortcomings. The development team improves the service based on that, and the AI evaluates it again. An SKT official explained, "It is similar to a student taking a mock exam, a grader pointing out the wrong questions, and then taking the test again after supplementary study, repeating the process countless times."

The Everyone's AI service being built by the SKT consortium aims to be an "action-oriented AI secretary" that guides people through daily-life and public information in context and connects them to follow-up actions they need. Another feature is leveraging telecom infrastructure. It is designed to be used not only through a smartphone app but also by phone calls and text messages to improve user convenience.

An SKT official said, "Because Everyone's AI is a service that even people who are not familiar with smartphones can use with a single phone call, we cannot take even one answer lightly." The official added, "We will reduce gaps with an AI-based verification system and create an AI secretary that the public can trust and use."