Artificial intelligence research startup Anthropic has secured a $100 million investment from South Korean telecommunications giant SK Telecom. The funding will be used to develop large language model (LLM) AI systems customized specifically for the telecom industry. This investment follows a previous funding round in May, where Anthropic raised $450 million.
Under the strategic partnership, Anthropic and SK Telecom will work together to create LLM AI models specialized for telecommunications purposes. These models will relieve telecom companies from the need to design, customize, and train their own AI systems. The partnership aims to develop a multilingual LLM that supports languages such as Korean, English, German, Arabic, and Spanish.
Anthropic gained recognition for its chatbot, Claude, which competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The company recently released several upgrades to Claude, including larger context windows and the ability to read a novel in under a minute.
By fine-tuning Claude for telco use cases, particularly customer service, marketing, sales, and interactive consumer applications, SK Telecom aims to enhance its operations and improve efficiency. The AI will be able to quickly process business contexts and provide up-to-date information or assist employees in generating replies rapidly.
SK Telecom’s investment in Anthropic aligns with its goal to leverage AI to transform the telecommunications industry. The company believes that industry-specific LLMs have the potential to create safer and more reliable AI deployments.
By providing a tailored and fine-tuned model for the telco industry, SK Telecom and Anthropic aim to alleviate the burden on telecom companies, which would otherwise have to dedicate significant time and resources to develop and train their own AI systems.
This strategic partnership follows SK Telecom’s announcement of the Global Telco AI Alliance, formed alongside Deutsche Telekom, Emirates Telecommunications Group, and Singapore Telecommunications. The alliance intends to co-invest in the development of a Telco AI Platform, which will be enhanced with Anthropic’s multilingual LLM.
In May, videoconferencing and chat platform Zoom partnered with Anthropic to incorporate the Claude chatbot into its product suite. Zoom is now utilizing Claude in its Zoom Contact Center service, allowing customers to receive self-service resolutions and employees to provide quick replies based on business data.
Overall, the collaboration between Anthropic and SK Telecom signifies the growing significance of AI in the telecom industry. By leveraging advanced language models, telecom companies can enhance their operations, improve customer experiences, and enhance overall efficiency.
