[POSTECH and KT design a master’s degree program leading to hiring to nurture talent in the digital industry and to strengthen competitiveness in AI.]

[Students in the full-time program will be sponsored tuition and registration fees, and will be hired as KT R&D researchers upon graduation.]

[The program provides opportunities for students to study large-scale AI data by participating in company projects and using the latest GPU servers.]

With the digital transformation accelerating across many industries, finding digital experts equipped with the right practical skills in the new fields, such as artificial intelligence (AI), has become a pressing task. As such, prestigious universities in Korea are strengthening their collaborations with private companies, seeking out various ways to nurture human resources that are in high demand.

On May 26, KT, a leader in strengthening Korea’s AI competitiveness and cultivating human resources in the digital sector, announced that it will work with POSTECH to raise AI experts together.

Based on this partnership, the KT-POSTECH AI Expert Program will enroll its first class of students in 2023. The program is a full-time master’s degree curriculum linked with job opportunities. In the second half of this year, the program will begin accepting applications from (prospective) candidates who have completed their bachelor’s degrees at home and abroad. Based on a customized curriculum, the students will be taught key areas of artificial intelligence, including voice recognition, voice synthesis, natural language processing, graphics, and computer vision.

KT will provide registration and tuition fees and research stipend for the entire period of the program for the enrolled students. The company will also provide dormitory accommodations for those students from other regions. The students be allowed to use the latest graphic processing unit (GPU) servers owned by KT for their research and during summer break, students will gain hands-on, real-world experience by analyzing and studying large-scale AI data through KT internship programs. Upon graduation, the students will work as researchers at research institutes including the KT Institute of Convergence Technology.

The application information for this new master’s program at POSTECH for the academic year 2023 will be announced after July on KT’s recruitment site (recruit.kt.com). The selection process will be as follows: (1) application screening, (2) personality and aptitude tests and coding test, (3) interview with KT, and (4) interview with the graduate admissions.

“It is meaningful that KT will foster future talents in AI together with POSTECH, which is a representative university in Korea with world-class infrastructure for teaching AI,” explained Vice President Hyun-ok Shin of the Management Support Division at KT. “We will not spare our support in various aspects, so that the students participating in this program can grow to become key leading figures in the development of the AI industry in Korea.”

“Our goal is to raise bold, creative individuals who will apply artificial intelligence with immeasurable potential to various industries to take Korea’s AI competitiveness to the highest level,” remarked Professor Young Joo Suh, Dean of the Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence. “The POSTECH Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence has the best technological prowess in the field of AI. Its close cooperation with KT, an innovative leader in AI and big data, is expected to create a new model for cultivating talent through industry–academia collaborations.”