LG Uplus (032640) is pursuing an "autonomous network operations" strategy using artificial intelligence agents and digital twin technology to cope with traffic that has surged 50-fold over the past decade. The company aims to use AI to predict and respond to sudden traffic overloads in advance while replicating thousands of central offices in virtual space to simultaneously improve network operational efficiency and service quality.
At a press conference held at LG Science Park in Gangseo-gu, Seoul on the 10th, LG Uplus announced it would "complete the network autonomization phase by 2028 at the earliest." The autonomization phase goes beyond "automation," where software robots handle only simple tasks, or "intelligentization," where AI assists human judgment, to a level where AI directly identifies problems for preemptive response or analyzes situations to take action.
Since last year, LG Uplus has been developing approximately 210 types of AI agents to address network failure handling, service quality anomaly detection, base station overload response, and central office management. Among these, roughly 70 AI agents already in use operate on AION, the core platform for autonomous network operations. The company explained that "since introducing AION, mobile customer quality complaints have decreased by 70% and home customer quality complaints have fallen by 56%."
The central office management agent, which will oversee more than 5,000 unmanned central offices, is also drawing attention. Central offices are buildings housing network equipment operated by telecommunications carriers. The management agent enhances network management efficiency through digital twins that replicate actual central office spaces in virtual environments and U-BOT, an AI autonomous robot utilizing LG AI Research's "EXAONE."
Through digital twins, AI agents enable control centers to monitor equipment locations and environmental data such as temperature and humidity in real time. On-site, U-BOTs receiving commands from control centers patrol the facilities, using AI vision cameras to check access conditions and detect water leaks. LG Uplus has currently implemented digital twins for 105 central offices and is piloting one U-BOT unit. The company plans to dramatically reduce response times when actual failures occur.
LG Uplus is pursuing this network autonomization transition because the spread of 5G and Internet of Things technology has pushed traditional manpower-centered network operations to their limits. According to the company, mobile traffic grew from 3.3 exabytes per month in 2014 to 164 exabytes per month in 2024.