First Export of AI Solution
SK Telecom will export an “AI network solution” to Indian mobile operator Bharti Airtel.
SK Telecom announced on September 13 that SK Telecom president Park Jung-ho and Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Airtel signed a partnership agreement at the Moscone Center in San Francisco of the USA where the Mobile World Congress (MWC) America was held.
The contract amount was not disclosed in accordance with a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) between them, but it is estimated at several tens of billions of won when considering the current Indian telecom environment and the volume of the introduction of the solution. Depending on its progress, the volume may inflate.
The two companies decided to build SK Telecom's next-generation network management solution for a nationwide telecommunication network in India by 2019. The solution serves as the heart of the network which operates around the clock in an invisible location such as optimizing and transmitting communication traffic, discovering and correcting failures on its own.
Specifically, the solution provides the automatic optimization of a network by artificial intelligence, real-time quality prediction through big data analysis, the detection of and countermeasure against abnormality signs in all areas of the network. SK Telecom emphasized that it was rare in the world that a telecommunication carrier built a network solution based on AI.
During this month, SK Telecom will start the project by dispatching core network specialists to India to analyze the local network structure and evaluating necessary resources to raise quality satisfaction. The Korean telecom giant is planning to tentatively apply the core functions of the AI network to Bharti by the end of the year and complete the construction of the network by 2019 by optimizing it for local conditions.