In an unusual move for a startup that’s barely a year old, Element AI Inc. on Wednesday announced the creation of a $45 million venture capital fund dedicated to backing fellow artificial intelligence providers.

The launch comes not long after the company picked up $102 million in financing of its own from investors. Element AI, which provides machine learning development and consulting services, at the time shared plans to invest in up to 50 startups working on projects of interest. Specifically, the goal is to foster the development of products with the potential to help the enterprises that buy its services.

The new fund extends this push. It’s a joint effort between Element AI and three South Korean conglomerates likewise seeking to foster relationships with innovative machine learning startups. The group consists of local mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. Ltd., an investment firm called Hanwha Asset Management Co. Ltd. and Hyundai Motor Co., the country’s top automaker.

It appears that the Korean trio will provide most, if not all, the capital for the new fund. Element AI is in turn set to focus on identifying promising investment targets. The group plans to place a particular emphasis on technologies such as autonomous vehicles, household robots and drones.

The new fund is the latest in several that have been established this year to support emerging providers of machine learning products. Previously, Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. set aside $1.5 billion for fostering autonomous driving projects. And a couple months earlier, Google LLC revealed the existence of an internal investment arm called Gradient that focuses on backing early-stage AI startups.

Deep learning pioneer Andrew Ng is reportedly working on something similar. According to regulatory filings spotted back in August, Ng, who happens to be a veteran of both Google and Baidu, is raising $150 million to invest in AI startups.

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