SK Telecom announced on the 9th that it will launch a startup competition to participate in the ‘AI Startup Accelerator’ program for discovering and growing startups in the artificial intelligence (AI) field.
AI Startup Accelerator is a program aimed at accelerating the growth of promising startups in the AI field, and it will hold a public offering until the 9th of next month to select a total of 15 startups.
Earlier, SK Telecom has been intensively discovering and fostering 30 AI startups for two years from 2023, and 10 out of 15 teams selected last year are working on a total of 16 collaboration projects with SK Telecom.
SK Telecom will provide various benefits such as customized programs for six months to start-ups selected for this program in the future. The main support contents include mentoring and seminars specializing in AI startups, providing business cooperation opportunities with SK Telecom, mentoring and investment review by major domestic venture capitalists, and participation in demo days and external IR events.
This is also part of SK Telecom’s new ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) vision ‘DO THE GOOD AI’ (Double the Good AI) recently unveiled at the general shareholders’ meeting. At the time, SK Telecom said it would contribute to the growth of its AI business under this vision and at the same time lead to positive changes in society with AI in various fields and pursue sustainable growth.
Eom Jong-hwan, head of SK Telecom’s ESG promotion office, said, “Through this program, we want to actively discover competent AI start-ups and create opportunities to grow together. In the future, SK Telecom will continue to practice its ESG vision ‘Do the Good AI’ and strive to expand the AI ecosystem.”
Meanwhile, SK Telecom said on its newsroom the previous day that the number of members of the “K-AI Alliance,” which was formed with domestic AI companies aimed at targeting the global AI market, exceeded 30.
In February 2023, SK Telecom established the K-AI Alliance, a coalition of AI innovative companies that revitalizes the AI ecosystem and seeks joint entry into the global market.
There are five new AI technology companies that joined in March this year: global AI education solution company ‘Ellis Group’, AI model learning synthetic data generation company ‘GenAI’, AI search service company ‘Open Research’, pharmaceutical Generative AI solution company ‘Pinix Lab’, and data company ‘Encore’. In addition, a number of domestic AI companies, including Moloko, Olgoise, Vespin Global, and Revelion, are participating in this coalition.