The government is reported to have received applications from major domestic AI corporations such as Naver, LG, and SK Telecom for a national project that focuses on providing intensive support in computing resources and human resources for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) foundation models.
According to the industry on the 21st, at least eight corporations have expressed their intention to participate as lead organizations in a unique AI foundation model development support project that closes applications on that afternoon. The three strong contenders are Upstage, LG AI Research, and Naver Cloud, which have each formed a consortium to apply for the project.
Upstage recently unveiled its next-generation AI model "Solar Pro 2," which scored 58 points on the "Intelligence Index" of the global AI analysis firm "Artificial Analysis," ranking 12th overall. LG AI Research and Naver Cloud are corporations that produced Bae Gyeong-hun, Minister of Science and ICT, and Ha Jung-woo, Chief of AI Future Planning, respectively. They are considered representative AI model developers in Korea.
Telecommunications companies SK Telecom and KT also expressed their intention to participate. SK Telecom recently indicated its intention to apply for the project by unveiling "adot X 3.1," and the SKT consortium includes Krafton, which possesses AI technology for voice synthesis and gaming.
AI infrastructure corporation More has established its subsidiary Motif Technologies to promote AI model businesses and will participate in the project through this. Moreover, Konan Technology, which has extensive experience in developing large language models (LLM), and NC AI, which has open-sourced "Barco-Vision 2.0," also applied for the project.
The government plans to utilize the AI foundation models developed by AI developers at a global level as open source through this project. It will provide resources necessary for AI model development, such as GPU and datasets, tailored to demand. If selected as a representative AI model, it can use the designation "K-AI model," and the developer can refer to itself as a "K-AI corporation."