SK Telecom Invests $100 Mn In Google-backed Anthropic

South Korea's largest telecommunications company, SK Telecom, announced a substantial investment of USD 100 million in the US-based artificial intelligence firm Anthropic. 

The move aims to strengthen SK Telecom's position in the rapidly evolving landscape of telecommunications-driven artificial intelligence.

Anthropic, known for its competition with OpenAI in the development of AI foundation models, has garnered significant attention and funding in recent months. The startup secured an impressive USD 450 million from prominent investors, including Google's Alphabet Inc. and Spark Capital, in May of this year.

In a strategic partnership that highlights the potential of cross-border collaboration, SK Telecom had previously made a smaller investment in Anthropic, further solidifying their commitment to advancing AI technologies. The two companies now plan to join forces to develop a global, telecommunications-oriented multilingual large language model, coupled with the creation of a robust AI platform.

The particulars of SK Telecom's previous investment, as well as the extent of its stake in Anthropic, remain undisclosed. Nevertheless, the collaboration between these two industry leaders suggests a promising synergy between SK Telecom's telecommunications expertise and Anthropic's AI prowess.

Anthropic, established in 2021 by former executives of OpenAI, has rapidly emerged as a major contender in the AI domain. The startup's flagship Claude models have garnered attention for their potential to rival OpenAI's GPT-4, signaling a potential shift in the competitive landscape of AI-powered language models.