Latest news with #SKT
Forbes
7 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
SK Telecom Releases A Korean Sovereign LLM Built From Scratch
South Korean AI sovereign model getty Last week, South Korea's SK Telecom released a new entry in the global AI race: A.X 3.1 Lite, a 7-billion-parameter language model trained entirely from scratch for Korean use cases. It's small enough to run on a smartphone but still capable of handling a broad range of tasks, no cloud required. Most regional language models are fine-tuned versions of larger, overseas architectures. Not this one. SKT's team developed A.X 3.1 Lite entirely in-house, training it on 1.65 trillion multilingual tokens with a heavy focus on Korean content. The project ran on SKT's TITAN supercomputers, and the company controlled every layer, from tokenizer to inference. The payoff? A system that keeps data inside the country and avoids reliance on foreign tech. 'Based on the Korean LLM development capabilities that we have steadily built up, we will strive to increase the independence of the AI ecosystem and contribute to enhancing the nation's AI competitiveness,' said Kim Tae-yoon, Foundation Model Manager at SK Telecom. Seven billion parameters may not sound huge by 2025 standards, but that's the point. Smaller models are faster to load, use less power, and are cheaper to fine-tune, advantages that matter for mobile apps, small businesses, and research labs. To hit that sweet spot, SKT's engineers built a 32-layer transformer with 32 attention heads, a 4,096-dimensional hidden size, and a context length of 32,768 tokens. In short: it's compact, fast, and holds its own in performance. The numbers back that up. On the KMMLU multitask reasoning benchmark for Korean language, A.X 3.1 Lite scored 61.7, about 96% of SKT's larger A.X 4.0 Lite model. On the CLIcK cultural intelligence test, it edged out its bigger sibling: 71.22 vs. 69.97. And on KoBALT-700, a broader Korean QA benchmark, it scored 27.43, competitive with models several times its size. It also produces responses using roughly a third fewer tokens than comparable GPT models for Korean prompts. That translates to lower latency and longer phone battery life. Already in Action SK Telecom isn't just testing A.X 3.1 Lite in a lab. It already powers the company's voice assistant, which can summarize calls in real time. Developers can integrate the same tech into translation apps, customer support tools, or offline chat interfaces, all without data centers or external APIs. For large-scale deployments, SKT also offers an API and Docker-based container options that run on-premises. That's a big deal for banks, hospitals, and public agencies that need to keep sensitive data in-country. A Split Strategy: Lite and Large SKT's roadmap follows a two-track model. The A.X 3 Series, like 3.1 Lite, is built entirely from scratch, focused on sovereignty, compactness, and speed. The 4 Series, by contrast, is much larger and optimized for performance through continued pretraining. This gives Korean organizations a choice: use the fast, efficient Lite models for everyday tasks or scale up with the more powerful A.X 4 line, all without changing vendors. A.X 3.1 Lite isn't the end of the line either. SKT plans to release a 34-billion-parameter version, also developed from scratch, by the end of August 2025. That model aims to improve creative writing and code generation while keeping Korean-language efficiency intact. Korea's Big Bet on AI Independence SK Telecom's effort is part of a broader national strategy. The Korean government has committed billions of won to building its own foundational AI models. A contract is in the works, and SKT, alongside rivals Naver and Kakao, is expected to compete for it. The goal? Reduce dependence on foreign APIs and models by building tools that speak Korea's language, literally and politically. This trend isn't limited to Korea. France's Mistral AI is training models on home turf using an 18,000-GPU supercomputer. The UAE's Technology Innovation Institute has released Falcon 180B and a lighter Falcon 3 line, both fully open-source. In India, BharatGPT, built with help from Google Cloud, supports more than a dozen regional languages. Saudi Arabia is funding HUMAIN, an Arabic-language model backed by the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund. The message is clear: sovereign AI isn't just a buzzword anymore. For SKT, A.X 3.1 Lite isn't just another product. It's a marker, proof that Korea can build capable, competitive language models in-house, and run them on devices people already carry in their pockets.
Korea Herald
15-07-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
KT bets W1tr on cybersecurity over next five years
KT's plan tops rival SKT's W700b pledge following massive data breach South Korean telecommunications giant KT said Tuesday it will invest more than 1 trillion won ($724 million) over the next five years to fortify cybersecurity, amid heightened consumer concerns following a massive data breach at bigger rival SK Telecom. The planned investment surpasses SKT's 700 billion won pledge announced on July 4. SKT, the country's largest mobile carrier, made the commitment following a large scale cyberattack and subsequent data breach of customers' USIM data in April, prompting calls for an industrywide security overhaul. KT, however, said the investment was already in development prior to the SKT breach. Hwang Tae-sun, KT's chief information security and privacy officer, said during a media briefing in Seoul that a string of data breaches at major US carriers, including AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, in 2023 prompted the company to take action. KT, the country's second-largest mobile carrier, currently spends more than 100 billion won annually on information security, the most among domestic telecom operators. Under the new plan, it seeks to nearly double its cybersecurity budget to about 200 billion won a year, starting next year. Breaking down the investment, KT plans to allocate about 20 billion won to strengthen cooperation with global tech firms for security partnerships. 'In terms of partnerships, we are not only considering Microsoft, but also exploring collaborations with other major global security firms, such as Google and Palo Alto Networks,' Hwang said. Another 340 billion won will go toward strengthening the company's 'zero-trust' architecture ― a cybersecurity model that no user or device is trustworthy by default and requires continuous authentication ― as well as enhancing infrastructure for AI monitoring systems. The largest portion of 660 billion won is earmarked for ongoing disclosures and public trust initiatives. The remaining 50 billion won will be used to expand cybersecurity workforce. Hwang said the company plans to increase the number of personnel on its in-house security team from the current 162 to 300 experts. At the media briefing, KT said it will launch a new version of its artificial intelligence-powered voice phishing detection service later this year. The AI-powered tool analyzes phone conversations in real time to detect potential fraud. The upgraded 2.0 version seeks to raise detection accuracy from the current 91.6 percent to 95 percent, potentially preventing over 200 billion won in damages. The company said it is also upgrading its AI-powered spam filtering system for text messages. The enhanced program will be able to detect and block emerging types of spam, including investment scam messages and those that mimic social media conversations.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Storebrand ASA (STU:SKT) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Record Growth and Strategic ...
Group Cash-Based Earnings: NOK1,427 million in Q2. Operating Result: NOK953 million, up 16% year on year. Financial Result: NOK474 million from profit sharing and return on company capital. Return on Equity: Annualized at 18% for the quarter. Solvency Ratio: 200%. Share Buybacks: NOK1.5 billion planned for 2025, with the first tranche completed. Asset Under Management: Exceeded NOK1.5 trillion, a new record level. Insurance Portfolio Growth: 21% over the last 12 months, nearing NOK12 billion in annual premiums. Combined Ratio: Improved to 91% from 97% in Q1. Bank Lending Portfolio: Increased 12% year-on-year, reaching NOK92 billion. Market Share in Norwegian P&C Market: Increased to 7.4% from 7.1% in the previous quarter. Cost Guidance for 2025: NOK6.8 billion, with a reclassification leading to NOK6.9 billion under new recognition. Tax Charge: 15% for the quarter, below normal due to currency movements. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Sign with STU:SKT. Release Date: July 11, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Storebrand ASA (STU:SKT) delivered a record strong operating result with a 16% year-on-year increase, driven by strong growth in savings volumes and improved insurance results. The company achieved an annualized return on equity of 18% for the quarter, supported by a robust balance sheet with a 200% solvency ratio. Storebrand ASA (STU:SKT) plans to conduct NOK1.5 billion in share buybacks across 2025, demonstrating a commitment to returning capital to shareholders. The company reported double-digit growth across its business segments, including a 21% growth in the insurance portfolio over the last 12 months. Storebrand ASA (STU:SKT) exceeded NOK1.5 trillion in assets under management, reflecting a strong market position and ability to deliver value through active management. Market turbulence and geopolitical uncertainties continue to pose challenges, impacting asset management levels at times during the quarter. The Unit Linked business experienced a margin decline due to a significant drop in market values at the beginning of the quarter. The Asset Management segment faced delays in fundraising due to longer lead times in attracting new capital, resulting in a negative result for the first half of the year. The insurance segment's increased sales costs weakened the combined ratio by approximately 2 percentage points. Regulatory assumptions, volatility adjustment, and symmetric equity adjustment negatively affected the solvency margin. Q: Can you provide insights into the insurance results, particularly regarding frequency and weather impacts, and whether these results are sustainable for the rest of the year? Additionally, how is the disability insurance performing within the insurance segments? A: Lars Aasulv Loddesol, CFO: Frequency was slightly lower in the second quarter compared to last year, contributing to the strong results. We are continuously repricing the portfolio to align with claims development, which is now catching up with previous weak results. Disability insurance linked to Unit Linked plans in Norway and Sweden is performing well, with acceptable profitability. However, some smaller business lines with longer tails are still being repriced, impacting the guaranteed segment. Q: What is the outlook for Unit Linked Norway margins, and should we expect further pressure on margins for this segment? Also, regarding profit sharing in Norway, was the high result this quarter an extra on top of what we can expect later this year? A: Lars Aasulv Loddesol, CFO: The significant dip in financial markets at the beginning of the quarter affected AUM fees, leading to a technical margin decline. However, this is not representative of future expectations. Regarding profit sharing, the results are based on quarterly estimates and normalized for the year. The high result this quarter reflects good performance, but it is not an extra; it aligns with our annual expectations. Q: Can you elaborate on the asset management segment's performance, particularly the margins, and how the current AUM affects them? Additionally, with an ROE of over 18%, is this quarter indicative of short-term performance expectations? A: Lars Aasulv Loddesol, CFO: Asset management had strong performance fees, particularly in Skagen and Delphi, which lifted earnings. We aim to maintain a net margin of 18-20 basis points. The 18% ROE reflects a shift towards a capital-light business model, but low taxes this quarter also contributed. We will provide further updates at the Capital Markets Day. Q: Regarding insurance, at what market share would Storebrand no longer be considered a challenger, and when can we expect normalized distribution costs? A: Odd Arild Grefstad, CEO: We are pleased with our growth, increasing market share by 0.3% in one quarter. We have not set a ceiling for market share and will continue to be a challenger. Distribution costs are expected to normalize as we scale the business, but the speed depends on market share growth and sales. Q: Are current pricing trends in insurance ahead of risk, and could this lead to margin expansion beyond 2025? Also, how did benign weather and frequency deviations impact results this quarter? A: Lars Aasulv Loddesol, CFO: Pricing is based on recent trends, providing a tailwind compared to market development. There is potential for margin expansion if trends continue. Weather and frequency were slightly better than expected, contributing positively, but we cannot predict future conditions. The results align with expectations, with some lower frequency. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Korea Herald
07-07-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
SKT loses 800,000 subscribers amid fallout from hacking scandal
With Samsung's new phones debuting this week, telco rivalry heats up as SKT fights to retain users SK Telecom, South Korea's largest telecommunications firm by market share, is facing mounting fallout from a massive cyberattack, with subscriber churn accelerating despite the company's compensation measures, such as allowing customers to cancel their contracts early without penalty. While the company may retain its No. 1 position for now, its market dominance is increasingly under threat, with over 800,000 subscribers having already left as of the end of last month. As rival carriers ramp up efforts to lure dissatisfied customers, attention is focused on how SKT will contain the damage and defend its market share. Just a day after SKT announced its penalty waiver for early contract termination and unveiled a compensation plan on Friday, nearly 4,000 subscribers switched to rival carriers. On Saturday alone, SKT lost 3,865 users, while KT and LG Uplus gained 1,952 and 1,913 new subscribers, respectively. The government concluded on Friday that SKT had been the target of hacking attacks since 2021, and that negligence on its part allowed the damage to escalate — ultimately leading to the exposure of nearly 10 gigabytes of sensitive subscriber data. Amid concerns about significant financial losses, SKT ultimately decided to comply with the government's order to waive termination fees, prioritizing the restoration of long-term customer trust over short-term revenue, according to SKT CEO Ryu Young-sang. At a parliamentary hearing in May, the CEO warned that up to 5 million customers could leave if the company waived its termination fees, potentially resulting in more than 7 trillion won ($5.1 billion) in revenue losses over the next three years — assuming an average penalty of 100,000 won per person. Customers who canceled their contracts after the April 19 hacking incident, or who do so by July 14, will not be required to pay termination fees. In addition to the penalty waiver, the company has also announced compensation measures, including a 50 percent discount on August bills and 50 gigabytes of free monthly data through the end of the year. 'We are closely watching the situation, as there will likely be a significant number of subscribers who choose to end their SKT contracts and switch carriers without penalty by the 14th,' said an industry official. Reflecting the impact of these measures, SKT revised its 2024 consolidated sales forecast downward from 17.8 trillion won to 17 trillion won, citing losses from bill discounts and anticipated revenue hits from the penalty waivers. With SKT's waiver policy easing contract exits and rival carriers stepping up their marketing efforts, telecom competition is expected to peak in the coming weeks. Samsung Electronics is also preparing to launch its next-generation foldable smartphones — the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Z Fold 7 — this week, while the upcoming repeal of a law that caps smartphone subsidies is expected to add further fuel to the competitive fire. Meanwhile, some franchise stores of rival mobile carriers have come under fire for aggressive and unethical marketing tactics. As KT and LG Uplus intensify their campaigns to attract SKT users, certain retail outlets have reportedly offered illegal subsidies and instructed employees to use fear-based sales pitches. One such script targeting hesitant customers reportedly read: 'If you stay with SKT, your child could suffer from similar hacking later, and your phone number leak could put your child at risk too.' While the government has confirmed there has been no secondary damage from the hacking incident, these misleading tactics are fueling consumer fear in a bid to boost subscriber counts.
Korea Herald
04-07-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
SKT unveils W1tr post-hack plan after government probe
Plan includes waived fees, extra data and Korea's largest telco cyber spend SK Telecom on Friday pledged a sweeping 1 trillion won ($720 million) compensation and cybersecurity initiative, including penalty-free contract cancellations, after a government probe concluded the carrier was negligent in a hacking attack that exposed nearly 10 gigabytes of sensitive subscriber data. 'I offer my deepest and sincerest apologies. I stand here today with profound remorse and reflection,' SKT CEO Ryu Young-sang said, bowing during an emergency press briefing after the government's disclosure of its findings. 'We take the results of the government's joint public-private investigation very seriously and will swiftly implement all corrective actions and additional measures to prevent any recurrence.' Earlier, the Ministry of Science and ICT said SK Telecom failed to adequately protect its systems against an intrusion in April and ordered the company to permit contract cancellations without penalties and reinforce security measures. In response, SKT announced a compensation initiative, which includes 500 billion won worth of benefits for its about 24 million SKT subscribers, and a 700 billion won investment in cyber security over the next five years — the largest such commitment in Korea's telecom sector. The company also accepted the government's order to remove early termination penalties, a move expected to result in significant financial losses. Customers who canceled their contracts after the hacking, or who do so by July 14, will not be required to pay termination fees. In addition, the telecom giant will also automatically apply a 50 percent discount on telecom bills and provide 50GB of additional data per month to all subscribers, including those using budget services on SKT's network, from August to through the end of the year. Noting how it has been offering free USIM replacements and protection services, the company said it will also provide one year of free access to Zimperium's advanced mobile security solution, used by over 2,500 organizations globally. In its five-year security innovation plan, the company said it aims to double its security workforce, contribute 10 billion won to a security ecosystem fund and strengthen partnerships with universities and startups. The company will also elevate the chief information security officer to report directly to the CEO and recruit cybersecurity experts to its board. Before announcing the compensation plan, SKT lowered its full-year revenue forecast to 17 trillion won from 17.8 trillion won and revised its operating profit outlook from an expected gain to a potential loss on a year-on-year basis. 'This forecast reflects the impact of implementing the customer appreciation program worth 500 billion won and broader market conditions,' SKT said.
