KT has decided not to take part in the government’s additional call for the ‘independent AI foundation model’ project.
KT said on Jan. 23 it would not participate in the call to select an additional elite team. It said it would continue to explore various options under its own strategy to help strengthen South Korea’s AI competitiveness, based on capabilities it has built in AI, networks and data.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said on Jan. 15, when it announced results of the first-stage evaluation, that it would select 1 more elite team to take part in the project. It dropped Naver and NC AI from the 5 elite teams and planned to add 1 team again to create a four-team competition structure.
The ministry is running the additional selection process from Jan. 23 to Feb. 12. But major companies including Naver and NC AI, which were eliminated in the first round, and Kakao and KT have all declared they will not take part in the comeback round, shifting the competition toward startups. So far, Trillion Labs and Motif Technologies have said they intend to participate in the additional call.
Jin-ho Lee
jhlee26@d-today.co.kr