By Yoon Sung-won
LG Uplus, the nation’s smallest mobile carrier, says it will strengthen cooperation with the world’s leading mobile processor maker, Qualcomm, in fostering startups and smaller firms in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector.
The telecom company said Thursday it has signed an agreement with Qualcomm to invest $500,000 in supporting IoT startups in the next two years. This is an expansion from a joint fund business between the two companies established in September.
LG Uplus pledged to discover and nurture promising Korean startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by combining its business and research experience in IoT based on the long-term evolution network and Qualcomm’s technologies.
“LG Uplus will lead the future IoT technologies with Qualcomm,” LG Uplus Executive Vice President Kim Sun-tae said. “We will continue to build an ecosystem in the IoT sector by collaborating with more diverse global companies in order to flexibly react to the industrial changes.”
Qualcomm President Derek Aberle visited the LG Uplus headquarters in Yongsan, central Seoul, and met the company’s vice chairman, Lee Sang-chul, to discuss how to build an open ecosystem to expand the IoT industry and develop related services.
“Qualcomm has wanted to closely cooperate with LG Uplus to accelerate the development of the IoT industry and to establish an environment in Korea to help startups here run businesses both in the domestic and the global markets,” Aberle said.