South Korean telecommunications incumbent SK Telecom and China’s global e-commerce Alibaba have entered into discussions in an effort to develop a blueprint for new ICT industries.
SKT CEO, Park Jung-ho and Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma are heading talks designed to build a bridge between South Korea and China in order to improve bilateral cooperation between the global superpowers.
The head of both entities met at the HQ of SKT in Seoul and it has been disclosed that they spoke at length on emerging technologies in the ICT industry such as AI, Internet of Things and 5G. In addition to this, it was also claimed that both SK Telecom and Alibaba agreed to seek potential new business opportunities in next-generation media and content.
In a statement issued by SK Telecom, the South Korean conglomerate claimed that upon hearing about the ICT blueprint it had established, chairman of Alibaba Jack Ma then accepted their invitation to discuss it in more detail.
Reports circulating in the local press in South Korea have suggested that both companies plan to hold a senior leadership-level meeting as part of their efforts to develop and formulate mid to long-term innovation plans in new ICT areas and together expand the fourth industrial revolution and ICT ecosystems.
Alibaba had previously said in late 2017 that it planned on investing more than $15 billion in R&D over the next three years, with a specific focus on data intelligence, internet of things and human-machine interaction.
SKT is aggressively pursuing its mission to be the first in the country to launch commercial 5G service and recently conducted trials using two self-driving vehicles which shared traffic information via its pre-standard 5G network. The trials were held in Korea’s K-City pilot city for autonomous driving.
