“As AI services will get even more complicated over time, the current system will barely be able to keep up and offer quality services.” SK Telecom is the first domestic company to have deployed such a solution to a commercialized service. AI chipsets have upbeat growth potential. According to a March report from U.S. market information provider Tractica, global shipments of AI chipsets that were worth $1.6 billion in 2017 are forecast to rise to as much as $66.3 billion by 2025. “AI applications demand higher performance and lower power,” said Tractica’s principal analyst Anand Joshi. “The world’s top semiconductor companies as well as a number of start-ups have jumped into the race to meet these demands.” Outside of Korea, Nvidia, the No. 1 graphics processing units producer, Intel and Google are the top three players in AI accelerators. Many other noted tech firms have jumped on the bandwagon including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Alibaba, Huawei and Baidu. Chung went on to explain the two focuses of the AI accelerator when it comes to computing data: so-called deep learning training and inference. The share of training in the current form of AI services is bigger but inference will gain in importance as AI technologies mature and become more common, he said. Given that prediction, SK Telecom will focus on the stage of inference and has set a goal of coming up with a 3.0 version of the AI processor by 2020. That will enable more natural conversation with users.