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Microsoft, KT to launch Korean version of ChatGPT for businesses

Published: 05 Mar. 2025, 17:47 Updated: 05 Mar. 2025, 18:50

LEE JAE-LIM
[email protected]

KT CEO Kim Young-shub speaks during a press event at MWC 2025 Barcelona, Spain, on March 4. [KT]

Microsoft and wireless carrier KT will release a Korea-customized AI model for businesses in the second quarter of this year.

KT and Microsoft will establish a dedicated 300-member task force, including 200 experts from KT and 100 from Microsoft, this month to develop the ChatGPT-like algorithm, the two firms announced at MWC 2025 in Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday. The group will be focused on helping companies adopt AI, execute projects, and deliver tangible results, according to the announcement.

The initiative expands upon a planned AI-related joint venture that the two firms initially outlined last year, which included just 100 experts. It will operate as a small and semi-independent business unit, officially referred to as a company-in-company in Korea, within KT.

The Korea-customized AI will leverage KT’s proprietary large language model, Mi:dm, as well as multiple open-source algorithms.

KT says the service, the specifics of which have not been finalized, will go beyond simple Korean language processing to comprehend Korean culture, values and knowledge, which existing models made by global AI providers lack.

This initiative was among several collaborative strategies KT and Microsoft outlined at the mobile-focused trade show.

Separately from the task force, KT and Microsoft will also jointly operate a 26 billion won ($17.9 million) fund, starting in the second quarter of this year, to develop AI for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). KT will contribute 130 billion won while Microsoft will provide in-kind investments such as GPUs to support the initiative.

In September 2024, KT and Microsoft entered a five-year 2.4 trillion won partnership aiming to boost KT’s AI-driven revenue.

The efforts are part of the mobile carrier's recentering on AI as the center of its business. It is considering divesting its cash cow real estate assets to concentrate investments on technology instead. It recently appointed a consortium of Avison Young, Samjong KPMG and Colliers Korea as its sales advisers and is pushing forward with the sale of major real estate assets, including hotels Shilla Stay Yeoksam and Andaz Seoul Gangnam, both located in prime areas of the capital.

“KT’s mainstay business is not the hotel industry,” said KT CEO Kim Young-shub. “The company’s main goal is to efficiently manage limited resources to strengthen its main business and drive future growth.”

At the same day, SK Telecom, another dominant mobile carrier in Korea, announced a partnership with Schneider Electric, a French-based energy management and automation company, for the construction and operation of AI data centers in Korea.

The collaboration covers mechanical, electric and plumbing systems.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [[email protected]]