Anthropic, a pioneering AI startup founded by former leaders of OpenAI, has received a substantial investment of $100 million from SK Telecom (SKT), a prominent South Korean mobile carrier. This strategic funding move was unveiled on Sunday, showcasing SKT’s commitment to the flourishing field of generative AI.
This significant investment comes hot on the heels of Anthropic’s Series C funding round, which saw the company raise an impressive $450 million in May, led by Spark Capital. Notably, SKT had already participated in the Series C funding through its venture capital arm, SK Telecom Venture Capital (SKTVC). Adding to this momentum, the German software powerhouse SAP recently joined in as an investor in Anthropic.
By forging this partnership with Anthropic, SK Telecom is taking a bold stride into the competitive realm of generative AI. The announcement outlined a shared vision: to collaboratively develop a multilingual large language model (LLM) tailored specifically for global telecommunications firms. Steering this venture is Anthropic’s Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Jared Kaplan, who will be charting the course for customization and the product roadmap.
Dario Amodei, Co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, expressed his excitement about the partnership, highlighting SKT’s visionary ambitions to revolutionize the telecommunications industry through AI. He underscored the synergistic potential of combining Anthropic’s AI expertise with SKT’s industry acumen to create an LLM meticulously designed for telecom companies.
The joint LLM project, championed by SKT and Anthropic, is poised to empower four members of the Global Telco AI Alliance—Deutsche Telekom, e&, Singtel, and of course, SKT itself. This collaboration aims to offer tailor-made AI advancements that cater to the diverse needs of users in various global markets. With language support encompassing English, Korean, German, Japanese, Arabic, and Spanish, this initiative heralds a new era of communication flexibility.
Do you know that Zoom, a well-known video conferencing platform, has changed its terms of service and reiterated its commitment to client data protection in an important step to address consumer concerns and assure transparency? Zoom has made it crystal clear that the content shared during videoconferencing sessions will not be used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, whether developed by Zoom or by third parties:
Founded in 2021, Anthropic’s core innovation, Claude, akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, holds the capacity to transform corporate operations. From streamlining tasks and generating answers to automating workflows, coding, and processing text within natural conversations, Claude is a versatile AI system with multifaceted applications. The recent release of Claude Instant 1.2 further solidifies Anthropic’s AI prowess, fusing the strengths of its second-generation AI chatbot, Claude 2.
In the realm of telecommunications, Claude’s applications are poised to be game-changing. It will facilitate industry-specific customer service, marketing endeavors, sales initiatives, and interactive consumer applications, as affirmed by SKT.
Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SKT, succinctly encapsulated the sentiment behind this alliance. By harmonizing Anthropic’s robust AI capabilities with SKT’s Korean language-based LLM, the partnership aims to not only create synergy but also to ascend to a leadership position within the dynamic AI ecosystem, particularly in collaboration with global telecom partners.
In conclusion, Anthropic’s collaboration with SK Telecom stands as a testament to the relentless pursuit of AI innovation. As the two industry giants converge to pioneer a customized LLM, the telecommunications landscape is poised for transformative change, propelled by the fusion of technological expertise and visionary acumen.
Leave a Reply