Dell and SKT are integrating the carrier’s telco-specific large language model with existing BSS
Telecommunications companies are battling a challenging environment rife with increasing pressures around sustainability, market competition, and perhaps most importantly, the ever-present need to monetize their investments. AI has emerged as a potential — and powerful — answer to these challenges. If AI can speed up key tasks like network detection anomaly, customer consulting, marketing and more, telcos can save time and cut costs, all while improving network performance and customer satisfaction.
Like its fellow operators, SK Telecom (SKT) is actively looking to incorporate AI into its operations, but the company is also positioning itself as an AI vendor in the rapidly expanding artificial intelligence ecosystem with the launch of its telco-specific large language model (LLM) and middle layer platform. At the recent Digital Transformation World—Ignite event in Copenhagen, the company’s MNO AI Transformation Strategy Team Member Jaeyoung Sohn detailed how this solution is getting a boost from several of Dell’s AI enterprise offerings.
SKT’s LLM is designed to help telcos improve their customer interactions via digital human-like assistants and chatbots that SKT calls AI Chat Agent, which Sohn revealed is on track for commercialization by the end of the year. However, even as advanced AI tools such as these continue to hit the market, many telcos are still struggling with the “what and how” of AI integration.
Cue a compelling TM Forum catalyst project called Total AI Solution that Sohn said “integrate[s] the SK Telecom telco-specific LLM with existing BSS using a middle layer platform” to make it easier and faster for telcos to use AI as an effective and reliable customer-facing tool. The Total AI solution is made all the more formidable by the partnership between SKT and Dell in which the former is leveraging the latter’s on-premise cloud platform for more “secure and cost-effective operations.”
Vikas Kumar, Dell’s Global Enterprise Architect, jumped in here to offer a broader characterization of the company’s work with SKT, saying simply: “We were trying to bring in the best of the ecosystem.” He added that this “best” includes several of Dell’s enterprise solutions like the AI Factory and Infrastructure Block.
The debut of commercialized generative AI (gen AI) has sent nearly every industry into a tailspin as everyone scrambled to find the best and flashiest ways to put it to use. The telecommunications industry is no exception. While much of the messaging around AI may feel exaggerated, this technology has very real implications and a very tangible impact for telcos as they continue to face down today’s market challenges and discover new revenue paths.
Find out more more about the TM Forum and AI chat agent here.
