Naver Cloud formed a consortium with Twelve Labs, a video multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) startup founded in Silicon Valley, USA, to support the government's national AI foundation model project.
According to the IT industry on the 27th, Naver Cloud submitted an application together with Twelve Labs for the AI foundation model development support project of the Ministry of Science and ICT, which closed for applications on the 21st. It is reported that major domestic university research institutions, including Korea University, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Hanyang University, and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), participated in the Naver Cloud consortium.
On the 25th, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced the first round of consortia, including Naver Cloud, LG AI Research Institute, Motif Technologies, Kakao, Upstage, KT, SK Telecom, Konan Technology, NC AI, and KAIST. The 10 teams will be narrowed down to 5 by early next month through evaluation, and selected teams will receive concentrated support in computing resources such as graphics processing units (GPUs), data, and talent.
Naver Cloud has been dedicated to the development of its own massive language model (LLM) HyperClovaX and has emphasized the importance of 'sovereign AI.' Ha Jung-woo, the head of AI future planning, is also from Naver Cloud.
Naver has been focused on voice and language-based multimodal technology, but has received criticism for being relatively inadequate in the video domain. As Twelve Labs possesses global-level vision AI technology, a strategic partnership between the two sides is expected to allow for a well-designed usability based on video.
Naver is already conducting collaborations to build AI infrastructure and services in countries such as Thailand and Morocco, including Saudi Arabia, where it has established a base corporation. Naver Cloud has a business domain that encompasses large-scale data centers, cloud infrastructure, AI platforms, applications, and user services, including its independently developed HyperClovaX.