LG CNS invests in CHA Biotech to fast-track AI-powered digital health care

LG CNS CEO Hyun Shin-gyoon, right, and CHA Biomedical Group Vice President Cha Won-tae pose after signing a strategic partnership agreement at Cha Bio Complex in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday. Courtesy of LG CNS

LG CNS is accelerating its digital health care business in partnership with CHA Biomedical Group, making a 10 billion won ($6.8 million) equity investment in its affiliate CHA Biotech.

The company said Thursday that it signed a strategic partnership agreement with CHA Biotech a day earlier to carry out the investment and collaborate on artificial intelligence (AI) transformation (AX) and digital transformation (DX) initiatives for the development of AI-powered digital health care services.

CHA Biomedical Group is a comprehensive bio and health care company spanning hospitals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology research and medical services with several affiliates, including CHA Biotech, CHA Meditech, CMG Pharmaceutical and CHA Vaccine Institute.

Through this investment, LG CNS and CHA Biomedical Group plan to establish a regular joint consultative body and carry out major AX and DX projects.

“Through our partnership with CHA Biomedical Group, we aim to strengthen our competitiveness in digital health care platforms,” an LG CNS official said. “We will position ourselves as a leading technology partner driving AI and data-driven innovation in health care.”

In the near term, the two will implement a smart big data platform to integrate the group-wide systems while transitioning its current system to a cloud-based infrastructure. LG CNS will also apply AI technologies to enhance pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities and optimize processes.

Over the mid to long term, the two aim to commercialize the group’s core strategic initiative, an AI-powered connected health care service.

The service analyzes the users’ health and lifestyle data from hospitals, residential spaces and wearable devices using health care-specific AI and automatically prompts actions when potential health risks are detected, such as connecting patients with medical professionals, providing care guidance and coordinating emergency responses.

To support this, LG CNS plans to use LG AI Research’s foundation model EXAONE to build a health care-specialized smaller large language model. The company will also develop a big data platform to collect and manage medical, genetic and lifestyle data.

The two companies are exploring global expansion of the connected health care service by tapping the group’s overseas hospital networks in the United States, Singapore, Australia and Japan, while planning to leverage accumulated data and experience to extend the platform into related industries.