Global Telco AI Alliance forms joint venture to build telco LLMs

Members of the Global Telco AI Alliance (GTAA) signed Wednesday a joint venture agreement to develop and launch multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs) specifically tailored to the needs of telco companies.

GTAA founding members Singtel, Deutsche Telekom, e&, SK Telecom and SoftBank signed the agreement at TM Forum's DTW24-Ignite held this week in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The creation of the joint venture came four months after the establishment of the GTAA during this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

In a press statement, the GTAA said that each founding member will put in equal investment into the joint venture for the working capital needed to develop the telco LLM that would help telcos "to improve their customer interactions via digital assists and other innovative AI applications."

The launch of the joint venture is subject to customary approvals.

Joint venture to create new business opportunities

The alliance said the joint venture will be deploying AI applications tailored to the needs of its founding members, enabling them to reach a global customer base of approximately 1.3 billion across 50 countries. The telco LLMs will support multiple languages, including Arabic, Bahasa, English, Korean, English and German.

Compared to general LLMs, telco-specific LLMs are more attuned to the telecommunications domain and better at understanding user intent.

Related:SKT, Singtel, SoftBank, Deutsche Telekom and e& Group to set up LLM joint venture

By making it easier for telcos to deploy high-quality generative AI models swiftly and efficiently, telco-specific LLMs are expected to help accelerate AI transformation of various telco business and services, including customer service.

At the second Global Telco AI Roundtable held at DTW24, SKT CEO Ryu Young-sang emphasized the transformative potential of AI in the telecom industry.

"Through the telco LLM joint venture, new business opportunities will be created and enhanced levels of customer experiences will be achieved," Ryu said in a press release.

While heading towards this goal, however, Ryu said the GTAA needs to proactively address the social and environmental responsibilities associated with AI by establishing an effective AI governance framework.