SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest cellular operator, has determined to close down its metaverse platform “ifland” to shift focus towards synthetic intelligence (AI).
The corporate confirmed that “ifland” can be totally closed by March 31, 2025, with companies regularly being discontinued main as much as that date.
SK Telecom additionally acknowledged it would refund customers for any paid content material, together with digital objects like “stones” and customizations.
An official from SK Telecom defined: “We will further accelerate the transition to a global AI company by utilizing the accumulated metaverse capabilities to strengthen AI competitiveness.”
To help its AI ambitions, SK Telecom lately invested $3 million in Twelve Labs, a startup specializing in AI video evaluation.
The closure of “ifland” comes after almost 4 years of operation, following its launch in 2021. Over this era, SK Telecom launched a number of initiatives for the platform.
In 2022, the corporate sought to increase “ifland” globally, aiming to construct worldwide partnerships and provide localized content material.
In 2023, SK Telecom made one other push to increase, including 16,000 new digital objects, integrating non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by way of “TopPort,” and introducing a digital foreign money referred to as “Stone.” Throughout the identical 12 months, the corporate introduced worldwide collaborations with telecom and tech giants to create tailor-made experiences.
The shutdown isn’t stunning, as different firms have additionally scaled again their involvement within the Web3 area.
Earlier this month, Nike’s NFT studio RTFKT revealed plans to wind down operations by January 2025. Equally, Kraken plans to shut its NFT market by February 2025. Different firms, together with Immutable, Lacoste, Reddit, Starbucks, and GameStop, have additionally made comparable strikes.
