Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- Through cooperation with two business partners, SK Telecom, a top mobile carrier in South Korea, will develop an artificial intelligence-based solution to meet growing demands for efficient and intelligent video analysis services. They would jointly look for a business model for an AI-based integrated intelligent video security service for public safety and industrial facilities. 

SK Telecom (SKT) said that it has partnered with its physical security wing, ADT Caps, and Innodep, a video security software provider, to develop an intelligent video analysis solution using SAPEON X220, an AI chip developed by SKT, and tap overseas markets.

As CCTV installation is rapidly increasing in the public and private sectors for the purpose of strengthening safety and security, SKT said the solution would increase cost-effectiveness and accuracy through the optimization of its AI chip and algorithms. It would be linked with Innodep's intelligent control platform and ADT Caps' convergence security service.

"Vision AI technologies that mimic human visual intelligence will be key to the intellectualization of future industries such as smart factories, telemedicine and urban safety," SKT's T3K innovation center head Lee Jong-min said, adding that the ultimate goal is to universalize the world's best technology that anyone can easily access.

Vision AI, also known as computer vision, is a field of computer science that trains computers to replicate the human vision system. The technology enables digital devices to identify and process objects in images and videos. Computer vision can be utilized for self-driving cars, medical diagnosis and image labeling. With better resources available to train models, computer vision can recognize, classify and detect diverse images and videos.

SKT said its AI chip has solved the problem of analysis accuracy and investment efficiency, which had been pointed out as an obstacle to expanding the intelligent video analysis technology market. In November 2020, the company unveiled SAPEON X220 that enhances the performance of data centers through the speedy computation of massive amounts of data, with its deep learning computation speed 1.5 times faster than that of graphics processing units (GPUs).

SKT has led a state project to develop next-generation AI chips and interfaces that can be utilized for high-performance servers like cloud data centers. The company would use SAPEON X220 to improve the voice recognition capability of its AI service while combining AI chips and 5G edge cloud.

SKT and ADT Caps have maintained relations with Innodep. In March 2020, they joined hands to develop 5G drone solutions that can be applied to security, disasters, the monitoring of public infrastructure, the measurement of an atmospheric environment and 3D surveying. SKT would provide technologies that transmit images based on a 5G network and image analysis engine technologies. Innodep would establish a platform to analyze video image and sensor data.