KT and KT Cloud invest 15B won in AI startup Moreh

KT and KT Cloud will jointly make a 15 billion won ($11.6 million) investment in Moreh, an artificial intelligence computing infrastructure startup, the telco said Sunday.

KT will invest 10 billion won while KT Cloud, the company’s cloud computing subsidiary, will cover the rest, in a bid to “bolster Korea’s competence in AI infrastructure with domestically developed technologies” amid Nvidia’s overwhelming dominance in the graphic processing unit market, according to KT.

The latest announcement follows KT’s previous equity investment in Moreh in 2021, through which the telecom company secured a 3.94 percent share in the startup.

KT aims to build up “full-stack” AI capabilities encompassing hardware infrastructure and software services while pouring some 2 trillion won by 2027 into the local startup scene.

"Full-stack" means the full, end-to-end development of applications, including the front end and back end.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]