South Korean mobile carrier SK Telecom will export its artificial intelligence network solutions to India’s Bharti Airtel, marking the company’s biggest foreign project, it announced Wednesday.

The two telecoms signed a strategic partnership to transfer AI technologies and solutions in San Francisco, where heads of global mobile carriers have gathered to attend the Mobile World Congress America.

Under the partnership, SKT will apply its AI network solution to the nationwide telecommunication network operated by Bharti Airtel across all regions of India by 2019. 
 

It is the first time for SKT to directly participate in establishing a network in another country beyond consulting and transferring technologies.

The AI network solution optimizes transmission of data traffic and detects and fixes glitches itself. It is also known as “the heart of telecom network.”

Since SKT applied the solution to Korean network services last October, the company has received inquiries from foreign telecoms about partnerships, it said.

Bharti Airtel is the world’s third-largest mobile carrier by subscribers. Around 280 million Indians and 100 million others in an additional 19 nations use the telecom services.

“We hope the latest partnership contributes to elevating India’s telecom infrastructure to the level of South Korea’s,” said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of the Indian firm.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)