THE KOREA ECONOMIC DAILY, GLOBAL EDITION

KT Corp., a South Korean telecom giant, plans to invest nearly $10 billion in its digital platform sector by 2026 as it aims to focus on the industry for future growth.

KT said on Thursday it will spend 12 trillion won ($9.5 billion) on its digital service platform Digico including the artificial intelligence, robots, cloud, media and content from this year out of its total investment of 27 trillion won during the period.

“We will show new business models and lead the country’s digital transformation through the aggressive future investment,” said KT CEO Ku Hyeon-mo.

The company aims to pour 2.6 trillion won into the media and content businesses to develop K-content and secure intellectual property while considering further investments in expanding its media value chain including planning, production and distribution.

Apart from the five-year investment plan, it will spend some 6 trillion won to obtain content for its media services. KT and its affiliates had the largest subscribers of the domestic pay-TV services in the second half of last year.

CLOUD, IDC, AI

KT earmarked 1.7 trillion won to foster its internet data centers and cloud computing services by establishing a homegrown AI infrastructure ecosystem. It is expected to expand its business that allows users to borrow its AI infrastructure service.

The company will develop AI semiconductors in order to help corporate customers, who have been relying on foreign services based on graphic processing units (GPU), borrow AI infrastructures developed with domestic technology when needed. It plans to expand its businesses into the AI platform and service.

KT decided to spend 1.5 trillion won on the AI call center and robots. Based on the five-year investment, it will develop a subscription-based AI call center business.

In addition, it will also invest 3 trillion won in ventures and startups.

KT is poised to nurture manpower for digital industries, especially through its own free AI technology education program, with a goal to train 5,000 talents for the sectors over the five years.

It plans to hire some 28,000 new employees, including those from the program, a company source said.

For its traditional telco business, KT will spend 12 trillion won on the improvement in its communication network stability.

The company is set to expand bypass routes for the high-speed internet, internet protocol television and wireless communication to ensure stable service in case of any problems in networks.

Write to Han-Gyeol Seon at always@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.