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Tag: SK Telecom Co Ltd

  • Subsequent-gen cell web — 6G — will release in 2030, telecom bosses say, at the same time as 5G adoption stays low

    Telecommunications companies were discussing 6G, a better era of cell web after 5G. It’s nonetheless unclear what it’ll appear to be and the way it’ll paintings. However executives are expecting it’ll be rolled out in 2030.

    Rafael Henrique | Sopa Photographs | Lightrocket | Getty Photographs

    Executives at one of the vital international’s greatest telecommunications and generation companies informed CNBC that 6G, a better era of cell web after 5G, is prone to release in 2030.

    However best bosses additionally warned that the trade will have to no longer create an excessive amount of hype across the generation to keep away from complicated shoppers. It comes as firms additionally weigh up make a go back on their multi-billion greenback investments in 5G during the last few years.

    “We have now no longer finished the deployment of 5G but,” Ha Min Yong, leader building officer of SK Telecom, informed CNBC closing week. “I do not believe it is mature sufficient to speak about 6G severely … it is already just a little too early.”

    6G used to be the controversy of town at Cellular International Congress, the arena’s largest cell trade industry display closing week in Barcelona, with international telecommunications firms giving their perspectives on the most recent tech.

    5G adoption stays low

    Cellular operators in China, South Korea and the USA started rolling out 5G in 2019. The generation is the next-generation of cell web after 4G which guarantees superfast speeds.

    However penetration amongst shoppers stays low. Only one in seven folks international these days use a 5G smartphone, in line with Technique Analytics.

    5G on the other hand has been situated by way of the telecoms trade no longer simply as a shopper product for quicker obtain speeds, however as a community that would underpin new applied sciences like driverless automobiles or unpiloted air taxis. That is as it has decrease latency than 4G. That implies the time it takes for units to speak to one another is considerably decreased, a characteristic essential in situations the place knowledge must be delivered temporarily.

    Alternatively, after loads of billions of bucks of funding into 5G networks, carriers have struggled to peer the go back. Analysts mentioned that the actual doable to monetize 5G could be at the horizon.

    “5G adoption is accelerating in maximum nations the place it’s been deployed (together with India, which is all of a sudden development 5G networks), however shopper subscribers are just one metric of take-up – in the long run endeavor markets, and business segments are the place a lot of the prospective is,” Richard Webb, director of community infrastructure at CCS Perception, informed CNBC by way of e mail.

    So why is the trade speaking about 6G?

    Telecommunications networks require criteria. Those are, at their very best, globally permitted technical laws that outline how a generation works and its interoperability world wide. Interoperability refers back to the talent for 2 or extra techniques to paintings in combination.

    Those criteria take a number of years yet to come up with and finalize and comes to quite a few avid gamers from firms to lecturers and trade our bodies. This is why the trade is considering it such a lot.

    Paintings is underway on 6G criteria already thru standards-setting our bodies like 3GPP, which contributed to 5G. However it is nonetheless within the early phases at the moment.

    “Smartly 6G for us is truly at the analysis level,” Sigve Brekke, CEO of Telenor, informed CNBC in an interview closing week.

    Telecoms executives who spoke to CNBC mentioned the important thing can be to concentrate on 5G deployment at the same time as 6G analysis takes position. That is as a result of communicate of 6G may just confuse shoppers and there are nonetheless developments to be made in 5G, in line with BT’s generation leader Howard Watson.

    “What I’d say despite the fact that is, we as an trade want to prevent complicated shoppers by way of speaking to them about Gs since the subsequent factor you can question me is when is 6G coming? I do not see any use instances these days that we will’t do with 5G or its instant evolutions,” Watson informed CNBC closing week.

    “I don’t need to be complicated shoppers and enterprises with, look ahead to this new factor referred to as 6G.”

    Most of the present 5G networks are constructed on best of kit and generation from 4G. However operators are actually rolling out what they name standalone 5G. That may use generation impartial of 4G and springs with the promise of knowing 5G’s complete doable.

    There can be extra instrument that powers 5G networks serving to with potency such because the control of knowledge site visitors.

    “There may be nonetheless one step to return prior to 6G and that is the reason going to be referred to as 5G complex, which can turn into to be had in the marketplace in a few years’ time,” Pekka Lundmark, CEO of Nokia, informed CNBC in an interview closing week.

    Lundmark mentioned that may assist enhance the enjoy of applied sciences like augmented and digital truth or even to beef up the flying of drones.

    “There’s no explanation why to look ahead to 6G,” Lundmark mentioned.

    So what’s 6G?

    At this level, as a result of 6G criteria have no longer been set, there isn’t truly a transparent concept of what the generation will appear to be.

    BT’s CTO Watson mentioned “it is crucial we expect as operators to no less than get started signposting what’s going to it’s, what would possibly not it’s. That paintings’s simply began and it is too early to mention.”

    He added that 6G will carry enhanced cybersecurity to the cell community in addition to extra synthetic intelligence options.

    Nokia CEO Lundmark mentioned the 6G community would “act as one large massive sensor” which might stumble on the dimensions, pace and path of a shifting object. This selection may just assist the advent of computerized factories or even driverless automobiles.

    6G in 2030

    Quite a few executives, together with the Nokia CEO, predicted 6G can be rolled out in 2030.

    Nick McKeown, senior vp of the Community and Edge Staff at Intel, informed CNBC he additionally sees 6G being rolled out in 2030, with criteria being set a couple of years prior to.

    “So the criteria paintings is actively going down in those criteria, at the moment. And there is a specific amount of, you already know, understanding checking out and probing on other applied sciences, slightly little bit of jockeying for place on what the generation shall be,” McKeown mentioned in an interview closing week.

    The CTO of BT mentioned subsequent generations of cell networks are in most cases rolled out across the Olympics. He thinks that 6G shall be introduced across the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Australia.

    Neil Mawston, govt director at marketplace analysis company Technique Analytics, mentioned he predicts the primary 6G-enabled smartphone to be introduced in 2029.

    “The 6G race is underway,” Mawston mentioned.

    — CNBC’s Ryan Browne contributed to this newsletter.

  • Apple might release blended fact instrument this yr — however we are not scared, HTC CEO says

    Cher Wang, chairperson, co-founder and CEO of HTC, speaks at a keynote on the second one day of the Cellular Global Congress 2023.

    Joan Cros | Nurphoto | Nurphoto by means of Getty Photographs

    BARCELONA — The boss of client electronics company HTC thinks Apple goes to release its personal blended fact headset, however she’s no longer frightened in regards to the festival.

    Talking with CNBC on the Cellular Global Congress in Barcelona, HTC CEO and co-founder Cher Wang mentioned the Cupertino tech massive was once more likely to release a blended fact, or XR, product “very quickly” — probably once this yr. XR refers to applied sciences that mix the bodily and virtual worlds.

    “I feel the earliest [release date] could also be heart or later this yr,” Wang mentioned.

    The corporate will most probably prioritize this sort of instrument over augmented fact glasses, she added.

    Apple didn’t in an instant reply to a CNBC request for remark.

    It has reportedly indefinitely paused plans to release AR glasses by way of 2025. The corporate has lengthy been rumored to be running by itself digital and augmented fact studies. In January, Bloomberg reported that it’s gearing as much as liberate a blended fact headset within the spring.

    Apple continuously holds off on coming into a specific product pattern or characteristic till lengthy after different corporations. As an example, the iPhone did not get a digicam with two lenses till 2017, years after HTC offered a twin digicam with its HTC One M8 handset in 2014.

    “Apple is all the time extra wary. I feel the marketplace is now large enough [that] they most certainly will input,” Wang mentioned.

    But if Apple does sooner or later make its means into a brand new product class, it has a tendency to “redefine the way in which that everybody thinks about a possibility,” in step with Leo Gebbie, main analyst for attached units at CCS Perception.

    Neil Shah, analysis vp of Counterpoint Analysis, advised CNBC: “XR is the most recent type of how we will be able to engage in a different way with the arena and will trade the paradigm of private computing.”

    “Apple and all the business realizes the possible and therefore need to input and sooner or later lead this section,” he added.

    XR festival is fierce

    Apple would not be the one corporate stepping into at the XR recreation. In October, Meta introduced its $1,500 Quest Professional instrument, which shall we customers engage with digital items that seem in a full-color view of the arena round them.

    Previous this week, a Samsung govt mentioned that the South Korean electronics massive is “understanding” its blended fact technique. Microsoft has its personal blended fact headset, referred to as HoloLens. On Monday, Chinese language smartphone maker Xiaomi took the wraps off of a prototype set of augmented fact glasses.

    That can imply extra festival for HTC. In the second one quarter of 2022, the corporate shipped over 100,000 XR units, in step with information from Counterpoint Analysis, up by way of 158% from 40,000 shipments in the similar length a yr prior. However its marketplace percentage stays slightly small.

    If anything else, Wang thinks that strikes from Apple, Meta, Samsung and others within the house will spice up the entire adoption of blended fact units, which she sees as a boon to HTC’s industry.

    “It is in point of fact confirmed that our course is proper,” she mentioned. “Pageant is all the time just right.”

    As soon as a significant participant within the smartphone marketplace, HTC has staked its long term at the merging of digital and bodily worlds. In January, the corporate introduced its Vive XR Elite instrument, a light-weight headset serious about gaming, health and productiveness, at a $1,099 worth level.

    HTC offered a bit of its smartphone industry to Google in 2018 for $1.1 billion.

    Having a bet at the ‘metaverse’

    The wager longer term is that those units will likely be how we engage with a mass-scale digital international referred to as the “metaverse.” HTC has its personal so-called metaverse, named HTC Viverse, and the corporate talked up its ambitions on this space on the display this week.

    “The metaverse is more or less rising in a state the place such a lot of social media corporations and walled lawn corporations are seeking to construct it out themselves,” Shen Ye, HTC’s world head of product, advised CNBC. “Our purpose is to verify it is as open and interconnected as imaginable.”

    Buzz across the metaverse has died down in recent years, because the preliminary hype surrounding Meta’s involvement has been dressed in off. International shipments of VR headsets in addition to augmented fact units gross sales sank over 12% final yr, in step with IDC information.

    Corporations have as an alternative instructed towards synthetic intelligence, the brand new in-vogue tech matter that has been catapulted to the highest of business insiders’ favourite tendencies by way of ChatGPT, a well-liked AI chatbot. At MWC, South Korean telecoms company SKTelecom had a large signal that learn “AI METAVERSE.”

    Donning considered one of HTC’s XR units, customers can immerse themselves in digital areas or engage with 3-D items within the bodily house surrounding them.

    In a single enjoy proven off at MWC, other people had been invited to take a look at out their boxing abilities. A grid of 9 black circles seems, and also you had been scored on how temporarily it is advisable punch them as they lit up crimson one by one in a random order.

    Past the patron house, HTC sees its generation providing packages in additional business and commercial settings. The corporate is operating with the US Air Pressure and police departments to hold out digital coaching studies, Wang mentioned.

    WATCH: ChatGPT a ‘milestone’ for Qualcomm because it showcases A.I. smartphone capacity, CEO says

  • A South Korean telco large has its personal A.I. chatbot — and says it is a ‘tremendous app’ model of ChatGPT

    SK Telecom’s “A.” (pronounced “A dot”) synthetic intelligence chatbot has a personality that speaks to other folks. The corporate has built-in its quite a lot of provider from song streaming to e-commerce into A. and is making plans to release it totally in 2023.

    BARCELONA, Spain — SK Telecom, certainly one of South Korea’s largest carriers, is making plans to completely release its personal synthetic intelligence chatbot, however is taking a look at an excessively other product from ChatGPT, an government operating at the venture instructed CNBC.

    The corporate introduced a beta model of “A.” — pronounced “A dot” — in South Korea in Might closing yr. It’s according to generative AI, the generation in the back of OpenAI’s viral ChatGPT.

    Eric Davis, vp at SKT who’s main the paintings on A., mentioned that the corporate will release a complete model in South Korea this yr, including that this proposition may be very other from ChatGPT.

    “It is like you are speaking to a chum, the place you are fixing problems that you just come upon to your day by day lifestyles,” Davis instructed CNBC on Wednesday on the Cellular Global Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

    Davis mentioned that SKT has been operating on A. for a yr and a part. It’s is constructed in-house on the telecoms company on so-called massive language fashions — AI skilled on massive quantities of knowledge so that you could chat in herbal language. It’s the similar generation as the only in the back of ChatGPT.

    However Davis is eager to place A. as an excessively other product from ChatGPT. That is as a result of SKT additionally owns quite a lot of products and services, starting from song streaming to e-commerce and cost apps, which it’s integrating into its chatbot.

    “So, in large part, the tremendous app is the tip image there. Obtain our app, and we will do principally the entirety you wish to have us to do and extra,” Davis mentioned.

    A “tremendous app” is an idea pioneered via Chinese language generation giants, corresponding to Tencent with its WeChat messaging provider. The speculation is that an individual simplest wishes one app, and that a number of third-party products and services are obtainable by the use of that app. In China, WeChat can be utilized for the entirety from reserving vacations to bills.

    Tremendous apps are fashionable in China and in portions of Asia, however have not taken off in Europe and within the U.S.

    Davis, who in the past labored on Apple’s voice assistant Siri, mentioned that the plan is to combine “much more 0.33 get together products and services” into the A. chatbot.

    “ChatGPT is excellent. You understand, it solutions your questions, or it supplies a abstract. Nevertheless it does not do any issues we did in A., “Davis mentioned. “It does not attach you with products and services or out, it does not have any personalization, we make a aware effort to be informed about our customers.”

    A. is these days simplest to be had in Korean. Davis mentioned that SKT is within the early levels of exploring a global release for the provider.

    “We have been speaking to other folks in Europe, after all in Southeast Asia, native those that know the markets and know type of what will promote. So we have now been having talks, however once more, not anything’s truly finalized,” Davis mentioned.

    SKT has appeared to diversify past its core telecommunications trade. It plans to release a flying taxi provider in 2025, and CNBC reported this week that the corporate’s AI chip spin-off Sapeon seeks a $400 million valuation.

  • South Korean startup rival to Nvidia seeks $400 million valuation and plans new A.I. chip

    Sapeon used to be spun off from South Korea’s SK Telecom in 2022 and is elevating out of doors funding. The corporate is having a look to tackle Nvidia within the house of manmade intelligence chips.

    SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs

    BARCELONA, Spain — Sapeon, a South Korean synthetic intelligence chip startup headquartered in California, is elevating a investment spherical that places its valuation above $400 million, its CEO advised CNBC.

    The startup is subsidized via large South Korean companies SK Telecom, memory-chip maker SK Hynix and SK Sq., an funding corporate spun off of SK Telecom.

    Sapeon designs synthetic intelligence semiconductors for information facilities, for instance the ones run via cloud computing companies. Those AI chips are required for AI programs that require massive quantities of information processing.

    Recently, U.S. company Nvidia dominates this marketplace. However numerous established gamers akin to AMD and startups like Sapeon, want to problem Nvidia.

    “AI answers will develop so much due to the evolution of AI services and products like ChatGPT,” Soojung Ryu, CEO of Sapeon, advised CNBC in an interview on the Cellular Global Congress that aired Wednesday.

    ChatGPT is the viral chatbot advanced via OpenAI. It has brought about a stir within the tech global, with giants from Google to Chinese language company Baidu scrambling to unlock their very own competitors. Generation executives say ChatGPT has put AI programs at the map.

    Analysts at Bernstein be expecting ChatGPT to be a multi-billion buck boon for chipmakers having a look to gasoline those AI fashions.

    “We would really like construct this type of gadget (AI chips) to have a chance for the industry,” Ryu stated.

    Sapeon used to be created in 2016 within SK Telecom, certainly one of South Korea’s greatest telecommunications companies. SK Telecom then spun out the company closing 12 months and raised out of doors funding.

    Ryu stated the corporate is lately elevating cash at a valuation of $400 million.

    South Korean semiconductor companies together with Samsung and SK Hynix have generally been robust in reminiscence chips that move into units like PCs. Sapeon is amongst one of the most first companies out of South Korea to check out and crack the AI chip marketplace.

    Ryu stated that Sapeon is focused on the U.S. marketplace which might pit it towards Nvidia. When requested if Sapeon can problem Nvidia, Ryu responded “sure.”

    Recently, Sapeon has one chip available on the market referred to as the X220. It’s constructed on so-called 28-nanometer generation. The nanometer determine refers back to the measurement of each and every person transistor on a chip. The smaller the transistor, the extra of them may also be packed onto a unmarried semiconductor. Usually, a discount in nanometer measurement can yield extra robust and environment friendly chips.

    Ryu stated the corporate will release a 7-nanometer AI chip this 12 months and it’s going to be manufactured via TSMC, the sector’s greatest contract chipmaker. That will convey it nearer to the present generation available on the market.

  • A South Korean telecoms massive needs to release flying taxis in 2025 and expects it to be giant trade

    BARCELONA, Spain — South Korean telecommunications massive SK Telecom is making plans to release a flying taxi carrier in 2025 and expects it to generate “important” earnings going ahead, a senior govt advised CNBC.

    Closing 12 months, SK Telecom and U.S. company Joby Aviation inked a tie-up to increase air taxis for the South Korean marketplace. Joby Aviation is a maker of so-called electrical vertical take-off and touchdown cars. Those electrical flying cars are a observed through advocates so to delivery other folks round dense towns and keep away from visitors.

    The South Korean govt is pushing ahead with looking to commercialize air taxis through 2025.

    SK Telecom and Joby Aviation wish to benefit from the federal government backing. Ha Min-yong, leader construction officer of SK Telecom, advised CNBC in an interview Sunday that the corporate’s air taxi carrier will probably be made to be had commercially “someday in the midst of 2025,” sooner than increasing to different spaces like logistics.

    “So through 2025, if we’re in a position to end up that the carrier high quality is appropriate to most people with the security and in addition safety, then they [the government] will permit the operator to make bigger the world of the carrier, together with logistics and tourism in addition to medical-related services and products,” Ha advised CNBC on the Cell International Congress tournament in Barcelona, Spain.

    SK Telecom is having a look to make bigger its trade past being a standard cellular provider and has its attractions set on new spaces corresponding to synthetic intelligence and flying taxis. Those plane would require connecting to next-generation 5G networks to function and fly, sooner or later autonomously. That is the place SK Telecom’s house of experience is available in.

    SK Telecom has partnered with U.S. company Joby Aviation to deliver flying taxis to South Korea in 2025. SK Telecom is having a look to diversify its trade style to new spaces together with city air mobility and synthetic intelligence.

    Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

    Whilst this type of delivery is at an early level, consultancy Roland Berger forecasts that there will probably be just about 160,000 unpiloted electric drones in use international through 2050. They are going to generate an annual earnings of just about $90 billion, the corporate says.

    SK Telecom needs a slice of the pie and Ha stated that if all is going neatly, air taxis can be a giant earnings driving force for the corporate, “however no longer in an instant.”

    “So for the following no less than 5 [to] seven years, we wish to be sure that the carrier that we’re going to be offering to, you understand, society and group is secure sufficient,” Ha stated.

    “As soon as it is permitted really well through the group and society, then we imagine that it’s going to generate a vital quantity of earnings.”

  • The metaverse stole the display on the international’s greatest cellular tournament — and issues were given bizarre

    SK Telecom’s “4D Metaverse” journey at Cellular Global Congress 2022 in Barcelona, Spain.

    Ryan Browne | CNBC

    BARCELONA — Cellular Global Congress made a gigantic comeback this 12 months — however the time period on everybody’s lips wasn’t “smartphones” or “5G.”

    As a substitute, it used to be the “metaverse,” a imprecise thought used to explain huge virtual worlds wherein customers can paintings, play video games and even celebration.

    The time period has been the debate of the tech international ever since Fb modified its title to Meta, a rebrand in large part geared toward drumming up hype for Mark Zuckerberg’s imaginative and prescient for the digital universe.

    And at MWC, the sector’s greatest business display for the cell phone trade, the phrase used to be again and again dropped into keynote speeches and splashed throughout exhibition stands.

    “The metaverse is the buzzword of the instant,” CCS Perception Leader Analyst Ben Picket instructed CNBC on the display, stressing that it is nonetheless moderately a nebulous time period.

    Issues were given bizarre

    But when the metaverse is already a hazy thought, issues appeared to get even much less transparent at MWC.

    SK Telecom’s stand at Cellular Global Congress 2022 in Barcelona, Spain.

    Ryan Browne

    South Korean company SK Telecom had a “4D Metaverse” journey at its sales space right through the week. Attendees sat down at the journey and wore digital fact headsets. They have been then lifted up and carried round a virtual illustration of house.

    The catch? It used to be simply some other variation of the similar “4D VR” rides firms like Samsung have confirmed off at MWC in earlier years. In truth, most of the metaverse reviews at MWC have been VR-based.

    At HTC’s stand, guests have been invited to place at the Taiwanese corporate’s Vive headsets and stroll round a digital museum. They may additionally stroll round in a small pen whilst exploring a desolate tract panorama in VR.

    Over at the Qualcomm sales space, it’s essential get cooking courses or swat massive three-D bugs. Orange used to be inviting other folks to climb the Notre-Dame Cathedral in VR with Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 headset.

    “There is the unusual, wacky and the fantastic on display right here at MWC, all looking to soar at the bandwagon that’s the metaverse” Paolo Pescatore, tech, telecom and media analyst at PP Foresight, instructed CNBC.

    “It nonetheless feels very a lot some distance fetched. And it does virtually really feel roughly ‘Wild West’ at the moment.”

    Child steps

    Telecom firms have begun taking child steps into the metaverse, with Spain’s Telefonica even appointing anyone as its “leader metaverse officer.” Yaiza Rubio will lead a department geared toward bringing the provider’s metaverse technique to lifestyles, the corporate stated. What that technique will probably be is unclear.

    “We’re interested by [what] will have to be the position of a telco like Telefonica on this new evolution,” Chema Alonso, Telefonica’s leader virtual officer, instructed attendees at MWC.

    “We do not know but. However evidently, we’re going to be examining this very sparsely … as a result of we imagine that this motion is unstoppable.”

    Against this, BT stated it hasn’t employed a “leader metaverse officer.”

    “This present day, you’ll put the phrase metaverse in maximum issues with activity titles or tasks and it form of makes one thing that isn’t but that transparent appear very fashionable and thrilling,” Marc Allera, CEO of BT’s client manufacturers, instructed CNBC.

    The Orange stand at Cellular Global Congress 2022 in Barcelona, Spain.

    Ryan Browne

    Allera described the metaverse as a herbal evolution of the web, including that some sides of the metaverse exist already. “Blended fact reviews are being created as of late and they’re going to evolve” he stated.

    Having a look forward

    Mockingly, Fb-parent Meta — which fired the beginning gun on chatter in regards to the metaverse — did not have a lot of a presence at the exhibition ground at MWC. However the corporate had so much to mention on its construction.

    Zuckerberg put out a observation pronouncing its metaverse ambitions may not be conceivable until there are drastic enhancements in telecoms infrastructure. Dan Rabinovitsj, Meta’s vp of connectivity, stated as of late’s fixed-line and cellular networks are not but in a position.

    “We are operating carefully with our colleagues to take into consideration what is the next move in the case of innovation,” Rabinovitsj instructed CNBC, including that Meta could also be operating with telecoms companies.

    Every other factor that may require extra funding going ahead is chips. Semiconductor massive Qualcomm, as an example, says chips will want to get smaller, sooner and no more power-hungry if the metaverse goes to paintings.

    HTC’s Vive Center of attention 3 digital fact headset on show at Cellular Global Congress 2022 in Barcelona, Spain.

    Ryan Browne | CNBC

    “Just about everybody who’s creating a metaverse software at this level is the use of our chip,” Akash Palkhiwala, Qualcomm’s leader monetary officer, instructed CNBC — together with Meta.

    Regardless of the metaverse does in the end finally end up taking a look like, analysts imagine it is right here to stick.

    “We are in the beginning of an extended adventure,” Picket stated. “We have now already had a captivating step in the fitting route with the pandemic as a result of we are beginning to are living extra combined lives.”

    “There will probably be parts of that which can lend themselves to a metaverse-like revel in,” he added. “Then again, it’ll be an extended, very long time.”