SK Group, NTT and Chunghwa Telecom were among the parties to form an AI investment fund expected to reach $500 million, with the aim of backing companies working on technology related to optical and wireless networking.
The IOWN AI Fund has been established alongside Catalight Capital, a company set-up to manage the project from offices in Japan and the US.
Other current financiers are Development Bank of Japan, and Young Sohn, an entrepreneur who is founding managing partner of VC company Walden Catalyst Ventures and former chief strategy officer of Samsung Electronics.
In a joint statement, the companies and Sohn revealed more than 20 parties around the globe had expressed an interest in contributing to the fund, which is expected to reach $500 million in size.
Businesses apparently mulling the opportunity include KDDI, NEC, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Sony, Fujitsu and various VC companies.
Catalight Capital will be charged with hunting down promising start-ups for investment. Targets will be in technologies related to the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) ecosystem.
It intends to invest in companies working in areas including: photonics; AI processors and advanced packaging; light source and modulators; management technology for distributed AI infrastructure; software; AI models and inference; and applications and services.
Global push
SK Group chair Chey Tae-won stated he hoped the fund would: “play a key role in identifying and fostering AI start-ups not only across Asia but around the world”, noting “to emerge as a competitive AI nation, proactive and large-scale investment in AI infrastructure is essential, and trust-based global cooperation is equally important”.
NTT President and CEO Akira Shimada added “to realise AI-native infrastructure, it is essential to combine the optical and networking technologies that NTT has cultivated with advanced technologies and the strengths of partners”.
“Through the IOWN AI Fund, we will promote business collaboration with promising startups, work together with our global partners to build the IOWN ecosystem, and contribute to the creation of a new industrial foundation”.
IOWN is a vision initially pushed by NTT to drive next generation ICT infrastructure which uses optical networking technology to vastly cut electricity use while delivering high performance. The associated IOWN Global Forum has 170 member organisations.
The post Asia heavyweights partner on $500M AI fund appeared first on Mobile World Live.
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