AI infrastructure shines at MWC 2023

Tech

Published: 01 Mar. 2023, 17:22 Updated: 01 Mar. 2023, 17:27

AI infrastructure shines at MWC 2023

KT's booth at the MWC 2023 held in Barcelona, Spain [NEWS1]

Artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure took center stage at the MWC 2023.

The Mobile World Congress is the world’s largest connectivity event, held in Barcelona, Spain.

This year’s MWC began its four-day program on Monday, Feb. 27 under the theme of “Velocity: Unleashing tomorrow’s technology — Today.”

Inside KT’s booth were AI chips developed by Rebellions, a local custom chip designer. KT invested 30 billion won ($23.3 million) in Rebellions last year.

KT CEO Ku Hyeon-mo delivers a keynote speech on Tuesday at the MWC 2023 held in Barcelona, Spain. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

KT displayed its AI service and product line-up, which includes KT’s large-scale language model Mi:dm, Rebellions’ AI chip to power the language model, and an AI system software developed by Moreh and KT Cloud.

The telecom company owns 3.94 percent of Moreh, a computing infrastructure company. KT Cloud, KT’s cloud computing subsidiary, spun off from the parent company in April.

As in the case of KT and Rebellions, AI companies often team up with other players in order to gather track records for AI chip products. Software and service companies often join forces with hardware companies such as chip designers and manufacturers.

SK Telecom recently established the K-AI Alliance, which involves local AI companies such as Sapeon, Phantom AI, Bespin Global, Moloco, Konan Technology, Swit and Tuat. Naver is working with Samsung Electronics and FuriosaAI for its AI project.

A robot dog developed by China's Unitree Robotics at the MWC held in Barcelona on Tuesday [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

One key issue of these large-scale AI operations is the hefty costs that need to be poured into them.

For example, ChatGPT is estimated to cost billions of dollars a year if 150 million people use it per day, as large-scale AI models require high-performance semiconductors and cloud computing resources to operate.

KT is working with Moreh to cut costs by implementing AI management system software that boosts efficiency.

On Tuesday, KT CEO Ku Hyeon-mo delivered a keynote speech at the MWC with the theme of “Is it Time for Co-Creation?”

Ku withdrew his name from the CEO consideration by the board of directors and will step down from his post in March.

BY KWEN YU-JIN, SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]