LG unveils Korea’s 1st hybrid AI model EXAONE 4.0

Charts show LG’s EXAONE 4.0 AI benchmark test scores in pink, compared to global open-weight models. Courtesy of LG

LG AI Research, the artificial intelligence (AI) lab under LG Group, introduced Korea’s first hybrid AI model, EXAONE 4.0, Tuesday.

The hybrid model combines a large language model (LLM), which excels at understanding and generating human language and providing fast, knowledge-based answers, with a reasoning AI model that can form and test hypotheses independently to solve problems.

Currently, only a few companies have released hybrid AI models, such as Anthropic in the United States and Alibaba in China.

The lab released EXAONE 4.0 as an open-weight model on a global open-source AI platform, Hugging Face, for research and educational purposes. Open-weight refers to models that have publicly accessible internal variables learned during training, allowing others to modify or redistribute the model.

According to the lab, its latest model showed successful performance in various benchmark tests, scoring 92.3 on MMLU-Redux and 81.8 on MMLU-Pro, which measure knowledge and problem-solving. It scored 75.4 in the science-focused GPQA-Diamond test, and 85.3 in the math problem-solving AIME 2025 test, outperforming leading open-weight models from the U.S., China and France.

“We’ll continue our research and development so that EXAONE becomes Korea’s representative frontier model and proves its competitiveness in the global market,” said Lee Jin-sik, leader of LG AI Research’s EXAONE Lab.

To make the technology more accessible, the lab has launched a commercial application programming interface service for EXAONE 4.0 in partnership with FriendliAI, an official AI model distribution partner of Hugging Face. This allows individual developers and companies to easily use or integrate EXAONE into their services without needing high-performance graphics processing units.

On Tuesday, LG AI Research also held EXAONE Partners Day to discuss ways to strengthen collaboration utilizing the AI model with about 22 local partner companies.

The latest release comes about four months after the lab introduced Korea’s first reasoning AI model, EXAONE Deep, in March, further boosting its competitiveness in the global AI market.

LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo said in his New Year address that the company will continue advancing in the AI field to create unprecedented value.

“LG is what it is today because we’ve constantly challenged new areas and created value where none existed before,” he said.

“We’ll make advanced technologies like AI easy to use in everyday life, so people can spend their precious time on more enjoyable and meaningful things, creating a new lifestyle.”

LG AI Research will hold the LG AI Talk Concert 2025 next Tuesday at LG Sciencepark, its R&D complex in Gangseo District, Seoul, where it will showcase its latest achievements in AI technology, including EXAONE 4.0, and share future plans.