Samsung Electronics acquires U.K.-based knowledge graph startup

Oxford Semantic Technologies Ltd. CI

South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. has acquired a U.K. startup specializing in knowledge graph technology, a move seen as designed to combine the technology with its on-device artificial intelligence (AI) to offer differentiated personalized AI services.

Samsung Electronics announced on Thursday that it has signed an agreement to acquire Oxford Semantic Technologies Ltd., a U.K.-based AI startup. The company did not disclose the size of the acquisition.

Oxford Semantic Technologies is a startup co-founded in 2017 by three professors from Oxford University. It holds world-leading proprietary technology for knowledge graphs, which store and process data in a manner similar to human memory and recall.

Knowledge graphs are a technology that represents relevant information in interconnected graph form, making them one of the core technologies for enabling sophisticated and personalized AI.

Samsung Electronics has been collaborating with the U.K. company on various projects since 2018.

“We are delighted to be working with Samsung,” said Peter Crocker, chief executive officer of Oxford Semantic Technologies. “By integrating Samsung’s expertise in user experience and data with our advanced knowledge graph and reasoning technology, we will be able to provide Samsung’s customers with even more sophisticated personalization.”