SKT Acquires 20.77% Stake in AI Tech Company Konan Technology, Becoming Second Largest Shareholder

Strategic Partnership Agreement Including AI Technology Cooperation

Lee Sang-ho, SKT CTO (left), and Kim Young-seom, CEO of Conan Technology (right), are taking a commemorative photo for the MOU.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] SK Telecom is actively investing in core artificial intelligence (AI) technology companies.

SK Telecom announced on the 28th that it acquired a 20.77% stake in domestic AI technology company Konan Technology for 22.4 billion KRW, becoming the second largest shareholder. The largest shareholder is CEO Kim Young-seom, who holds a 23.9% stake. The two companies have signed a strategic partnership including AI technology cooperation.

Founded in 1999, Konan Technology is an AI solution specialist company that has accumulated technological expertise in search engines and unstructured big data analysis. Based on proprietary AI core technologies developed independently rather than open source, it holds overwhelming technological capabilities in the areas of text AI (AI for Text), which processes natural language, and video AI (for Video), which analyzes videos using artificial intelligence.

Among the total workforce, 57% are research and development (R&D) personnel, and the company invests 30-50% of its annual sales in AI-related R&D. It has maintained a high growth rate with an average annual growth rate of 18% from 2018 to 2021. Based on 23 years of long-standing experience, the company maintains a stable revenue structure, with 55% of sales coming from long-term customers of over five years.

SKT expects that this investment and the strategic partnership between the two companies will greatly help secure core AI technologies and strengthen capabilities. In particular, it judged that it will contribute to the AI transformation based on the advancement of the AI service A. (A-dot).

To create synergy, the two companies plan to review specific collaboration plans in various fields such as personnel exchange, technology cooperation, and market expansion. For example, joint execution of various AI projects is possible through the exchange and utilization of AI specialists from both companies. They also plan to actively promote differentiation and quality enhancement of A.'s functions by utilizing Konan Technology’s search technology and speech synthesis technology. It is also expected that cooperation to create a new business-to-business (B2B) market will be possible by leveraging the AI technologies and accumulated experience of both companies and collaborating with AI semiconductor company Sapeon.

SKT plans to continue strengthening investments and partnerships with companies possessing core AI technologies and capabilities to accelerate innovation speed in achieving its AI company vision.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.