South Korea’s KT Corp. announced on Tuesday that it has joined forces with global IT infrastructure company Kyndryl Inc. to tap into the growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) transformation in regulated industries.

KT signed a memorandum of understanding with Kyndryl in San Francisco, the United States, to collaborate on AI transformation (AX) business initiatives.

Under the agreement, the two companies plan to combine KT’s expertise in telecommunications with Kyndryl’s global business capabilities to offer AX services for B2B clients and jointly pursue business opportunities in AI, cloud, and cybersecurity within Korea.

Kyndryl, an IT infrastructure services provider, was spun off from IBM’s infrastructure services division in 2021.

KT said the partnership will initially focus on public projects aligned with the government’s fourth basic plan for cloud computing and the Financial Services Commission’s roadmap for network segregation in the financial sector.

The two companies plan to jointly research AI-, cloud-, and network-based security architectures to strengthen their capabilities in building safe IT environments.