Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
5 consortia selected to carry out Korea's national AI foundation model project
Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon attends the APEC Digital and Artificial Intelligence Ministerial Meeting in Songdo, Incheon, Monday. Yonhap
By Nam Hyun-woo
Naver, Upstage, SKT, NC, LG granted data for training models
Five consortia were selected as the operators of the Korean government’s project to establish proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) foundation models, aimed at developing large language models using purely domestic technology to achieve global competitiveness and secure digital sovereignty.
The consortia, dubbed Korea's “national AI champions,” will receive a combined 200 billion won in government support, including data resources, high-performance graphic processing units (GPUs) and other essential assistance.
During a press briefing, Monday, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that five consortia, those led by Naver Cloud, Upstage, SK Telecom, NC AI and LG AI Research, were selected as the program operators.
“The five teams have demonstrated strong capabilities in developing advanced AI models and are recognized for pursuing the essence of sovereign AI as they seek to build foundation models from scratch,” the ministry said.
The ministry noted that the teams have proposed high-level open-source policies that allow their models to be used commercially by other companies, contributing to the expansion of Korea’s AI ecosystem.
The ministry also confirmed that the selected teams have set scalable goals to advance beyond traditional language models to develop multimodal or omni models. Multimodal models are designed to understand not only text but also images, audio and other types of data. Omni models are aimed at performing a wide range of tasks across different domains using a single unified model.
The Naver Cloud team is comprised of portal giant Naver, U.S.-based AI startup Twelve Labs and domestic universities. The team aims to develop a proprietary omni foundation model to expand public access and drive industrial adoption.
The Upstage team is comprised of Upstage, developer of Solar LLM, and a number of Korean AI startups including Nota, Lablup and Flitto. The team seeks to develop Solar WBL to be a proprietary foundation model on par with global front-runners, with the goal of building a sustainable domestic AI ecosystem.
The SK Telecom team is comprised of the telecom company, along with game developer Krafton, mobility AI specialist 42dot and AI accelerator developer Rebellions. The team plans to develop both general-purpose AI agents accessible to everyone and industry-specific agents for business applications.
The NC AI team is comprised of a number of domestic universities and Lotte Innovate, and is pursuing the development of a proprietary 200-billion-parameter large language foundation model package with world-class performance.
The LG AI Research team includes the research institute, plus LG Uplus, LG CNS, chipmaker FuriosaAI and a number of other AI firms. The team aims to develop a high-performance AI foundation model that combines both specialization and general-purpose capabilities, while also building a full-stack AI ecosystem that is easily accessible to all.
Big-name AI firms such as Kakao and KT also applied for the project but were not selected among the final five.
The ministry said the all five teams requested government support in securing data resources. Around 10 billion won worth of datasets will be jointly purchased, including those held by the National Archives, Statistics Korea and the Korean Intellectual Property Office. Also, an additional 20 billion won worth of high-quality broadcast video training data will be provided.
The government will lend GPUs for Upstage, NC AI and LG AI Research, as SK Telecom and Naver Cloud were selected as GPU providers for the project in a separate bidding process.
The project has drawn industry attention as the government plans to designate the selected companies as “K-AI Models” or “K-AI Companies,” recognizing them as the country’s flagship AI firms.
“Upon designating the five elite teams, the government plans to support the application of their foundation models in expanding the AI ecosystem, improving public access to AI and accelerating AI transformation in the public, economic and social sectors,” the ministry said.
“A big applause to not only the five selected elite teams but also all participants who have shown their capabilities and passion for the project,” Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon said. “The government will actively support the growth of Korean AI companies and the expansion of a sovereign AI ecosystem.”