To prepare for the fourth industrial revolution, Samsung Electronics is opening its artificial intellegence centers in various international locations.
This shows the company's plan to focus on AI software and services in the future.
Roonhee Ko explains further.
Samsung Electronics has revealed what it hopes will be a new growth engine to build on its core businesses like semiconductors. And that is... artificial intelligence.
The company announced on Tuesday that it's setting up more AI research centers around the world. That will enable Samsung to employ more experts in fields where Korea lags behind.
Adding to existing ones in South Korea and the United States,…Samsung opened a center in the United Kingdom, in Cambridge, on May 22nd.
And two more, in Toronto, Canada... and Moscow, Russia are expected to launch by end of this month.
Each center will have a speciality in the AI field. For instance, the UK center will work on human behavior, specifically exploring areas like the recognition of emotions.
Samsung's new initiative was hinted at earlier this year when Kim Hyun-suk, the President of Samsung Research, attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas… and announced that the world's number-one manufacturer of computer chips will apply AI technologies to its Internet of Things devices -- things like refrigerators that order your groceries.
"Easily connect and control all the IoT device in your life. You are unifying the many existing IoT apps such as Samsung Connect, Smart Home, Smart View and more into one."
But some experts, like this economist, say a project spanning the globe will require Samsung to work together with foreign researchers, something past efforts like this have not exceled at.
"South Korean companies have struggled to develop research capacities in foreign countries. Therefore, management is key to successfully running a AI center with international workers."
By 2020, Samsung Electronics says it aims to have around 6-hundred AI experts in South Korea and more than 4-hundred overseas.
Ko Roon-hee, Arirang News.
