Naver shares plunged more than 4% after news spread that it was eliminated in the first round of evaluations for the "national team artificial intelligence (AI)."
On the 15th, in the Korea Exchange's main board, Naver closed at 247,500 won, down 12,000 won (4.62%) from the previous trading day.
On the day, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced the first-round evaluation results for the "independent AI foundation model project" to select Korea's representative AI model. This evaluation covered five companies: Naver Cloud, Upstage, SK Telecom, NC AI, and LG AI Research Institute.
The evaluation was conducted on a 100-point scale, comprising a benchmark evaluation (40 points), an expert evaluation (35 points), and a user evaluation (25 points), with rankings determined by adding the scores for each category.
Among them, NC AI and Naver Cloud were eliminated in the first evaluation, sharply dampening investor sentiment toward related corporations. NC AI failed to meet the standard in the model performance score and was eliminated, while Naver Cloud passed the score threshold but was judged noncompliant for not meeting the "independence criteria."