South Korea’s top telecom company KT Corp. will invest 500 billion won ($422 million) in cloud business and add 1,000 tech experts by 2023 to provide convergence digital services such as smart city, smart factory and connected car applications based on its 5G network.

During a press conference on Tuesday, the company announced it will offer its major platform services including AI platform Giga Genie application program interface (API), blockchain platform Giga Chain, big data platform Constantin and Air Map Korea for air quality monitoring via the cloud to increase customer convenience.

It will also provide its 5G Edge Cloud service that reduces data transfer latency by combining its 5G network and cloud expertise for the business to business (B2B) market. The company has already established eight 5G Edge communication centers across the nation and added two Edge Cloud centers to achieve super connectivity and super low latency.

The company will launch 5G B2B Edge Cloud services in the latter half of this year to provide customized cloud services to help customers accelerate innovation by linking the Edge Cloud service with artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics.

As the nation’s first cloud service operator, KT said it will address the unmet needs of customers based on its 5G network and lead the cloud industry in Korea.

By Lee Sun-hee and Choi Mira

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