Domestic corporations in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector are accelerating their efforts to establish a foothold in international markets beyond Korea with industry-specific AI. The universal AI market has already been dominated by U.S. and Chinese companies like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, and DeepSeek, which are backed by substantial capital, prompting a push to target the still-evolving industry-specific AI market without a clear leader. Experts assess that if Korea focuses on developing industry-specific AI in sectors where it holds strengths, such as manufacturing and content, it could enhance its competitiveness in the global market.
According to industry sources on the 1st, demand for 'vertical AI' specialized in specific industries such as manufacturing, defense, medical, logistics, legal, and finance is increasing. Although universal AI can be trained on vast knowledge for broad applications, it lacks specialized knowledge in specific industries and has a low understanding of work processes, leading to limitations in accuracy. This has increased the appeal of vertical AI, which offers tailored solutions to corporations.
According to market research firm Global Market Insights, the global vertical AI market size was $10.2 billion (approximately 14.2 trillion won) last year and is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 21.6% to reach $69 billion (approximately 96.5 trillion won) by 2034, increasing nearly sevenfold. Venture Forward Capital, which invests in early AI startups, noted, "The industrialization of AI is happening rapidly," adding that promising AI startups will provide vertical AI solutions that can address specific problems arising in industries such as healthcare, finance, and logistics.
In Korea, corporations that have built and are servicing vertical AI have consecutively attracted investments and expanded their businesses in recent years.
MakinaRocks, a corporation that has developed AI specialized for manufacturing, is a prime example. Through its self-developed AI platform 'Runway,' MakinaRocks supports on-site detection of equipment anomalies, process optimization, predictive maintenance for industrial robots, and analytics in real time. The company claims that this enhances process efficiency and reduces maintenance expenses. It serves over 60 clients, including Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, LG, and POSCO, and recently established a branch in Tokyo to attract Japanese clients, aiming to target the relatively slower digital transformation in the Japanese market.
MakinaRocks is also expanding its business scope to the defense sector based on the technology accumulated in manufacturing. CEO Yoon Seong-ho of MakinaRocks stated, "In environments like manufacturing and defense where security is strict and data access is difficult, universal AI has limitations."
Superb AI is an AI startup that provides 'vision AI' solutions capable of recognizing and analyzing visual information like images and videos to manufacturing and logistics corporations. It has secured over 100 client companies, including Samsung, LG Electronics, Qualcomm, Hyundai Motor, and SK Telecom. Recently, it reported winning projects consecutively with a video monitoring solution that automatically identifies situations and objects across multiple videos, tripling its contract amount in the first half compared to the same period last year.
Superb AI is also expanding its business into the U.S. and Japanese markets. In Japan, it provides vision AI software for quality inspection and recycling classification of steel products to major steel corporations and supplies the high-performance AI building platform 'Superb Platform' to Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. The company has raised a total of 49 billion won in investments so far and plans to prepare for an initial public offering (IPO) in the second half of the year.
Last year, Law&Company launched Korea's first and only legal AI service 'Super Lawyer' and attracted an additional investment of 50 billion won last month. Super Lawyer is an AI legal assistant service implemented using universal large language models (LLMs) like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT, based on an architecture designed by Law&Company itself. Within just one year of its launch, it recorded 12,000 registrations from lawyers. A company representative stated, "After establishing a foothold in the domestic market, we plan to start exploring overseas markets, beginning with Japan, where the legal system is similar to ours."
In the medical field, Lunit has built Korea's first medical-specialized 'AI foundation model.' Lunit has rapidly grown based on its cancer diagnosis AI solutions, recording a 116% increase in revenue to 54.2 billion won last year. Approximately 80% of this revenue comes from overseas markets, including North America, Europe, and Asia. Agtech startup Treeti operates a data platform that analyzes agriculture, livestock, and fishery-related data using its self-developed AI technology and supplies it to retail corporations like Walmart, Costco, Dole, Del Monte, and Emart. Treeti also reported that nearly half (43.4%) of its revenue of 42 billion won last year was generated from overseas.
An industry source in the AI sector commented, "It is difficult for latecomers to catch up in the universal generative AI market, as it has already been dominated by the U.S. and China," adding, "Korea has a wealth of high-quality data to train on in fields such as manufacturing, so it must develop industry-specific AI to have a fighting chance."