NC AI, which is challenging the 'reader AI' project, has formed a 'grand consortium' with the best dream team.
NC AI, a corporation specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) under NCSOFT, announced on the 31st that 14 domestic and international industries and research institutions, including POSCO DX, LOTTE Innovate, and NHN, are participating in the government AI foundation model construction project consortium.
The consortium led by NC AI includes the Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), which developed the Korean language models KorBERT and EAGLE, as well as Korea University, which developed the country's first large language model (LLM) 'KULLM'. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), which holds a world-class research team in 3D vision and robotics, will contribute to the next-generation research and development (R&D) field.
Data, a key asset that determines the quality of AI, is being constructed through a partnership between AI Works, a corporation specializing in AI learning data construction and quality verification, and Yonsei University to secure high-quality LLM and multimodal specialized data.
Distribution and operations will be handled by representative corporations from various fields in Korea, including LOTTE Innovate, POSCO DX, HL Robotics, Interex, NHN, and Mediazen.
In the manufacturing and robotics sectors, POSCO DX, a leading smart factory corporation, will verify the effectiveness of AI technology in the field, including at steel mills and battery factories, while HL Robotics plans to enhance the completeness of AI models that can be deployed in autonomous robots. Interex will advance physical AI model training by generating data that is difficult to collect in reality within a virtual environment using digital twin technology.
In the distribution and public sector, LOTTE Innovate will take charge of the industrial application of models developed based on its operational experience and technical expertise with its proprietary AI platform 'Aimember'. Mediazen and NHN will collaborate on the advancement of AI in the public and finance sectors.
In the content and media sector, they will collaborate with MBC. Based on MBC's vast broadcast archive data, they plan to train AI on the modern history and cultural context of Korea.
NHN Cloud, a corporation specializing in cloud services under NHN, is leading the establishment of an AI semiconductor farm with a scale exceeding 22 petaflops, the largest in the country. The consortium plans to conduct optimization demonstrations for domestic NPU based on this.
Lee Yeon-su, the head of NC AI, noted, 'True AI sovereignty is not simply passive defense that does not rely on foreign technology, but being a game changer who sets the stage and rules on the global level.' He added, 'This will mark the beginning of a great journey for Korea to secure leadership in technology, data, and industry and contribute to achieving the goal of 'AI G3.'