NHN said on 24th that it will participate as a joint research and development institution in the "2025 2nd Korean-style ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health) project" promoted by the K-Health Future Promotion Team of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The "Korean-style ARPA-H project" is a research and development program that sets five key missions—establishing health security, conquering intractable diseases, securing super-gap biohealth technologies, improving welfare and care, and innovating essential medical services—and seeks to solve them.
Among these, NHN will take part in the project in the "improving welfare and care" field titled "Development of AI-based preventive care services for frailty in a super-aged society (project name DEF-H, PM Lee Seung-gyu)." The task name is "Frailty Zero: development of a topological-analysis foundation model for frailty assessment/prediction based on metabolic capacity and commercialization of the FZ (Frailty Zero) care service."
The project is led by the Korea University College of Medicine, with six institutions participating as joint research and development institutions, including NHN, Korea University Medical Center, CHA University, Neuma Fit, and Lonfic. The research period runs from Jul. 2025 to Dec. 2029, and up to 12.75 billion won in government research and development funding will be provided.
The research team aims to develop an AI multimodal foundation model specialized for frailty and a "meta biomarker" that can measure frailty levels through analysis that includes metabolic capacity, going beyond conventional frailty diagnoses focused on cardiopulmonary, muscle strength, and cognitive functions. Based on this, the team will promote the provision of preventive care services for older adults.
The project will proceed through research, development, and commercialization stages, with NHN participating in AI model development in phase one and leading the task as the lead research institution in phase two. The research outcomes will be integrated into NHN's integrated care platform "Waplat AI life assistant" and developed into services that provide lifestyle improvement, physical function enhancement, cognitive stimulation, and emotional support.
An NHN official said, "Selection for this project is an official recognition of NHN's AI care technology and business capabilities accumulated by providing 'Waplat AI life assistant' to 19 local governments nationwide," adding, "We will successfully complete this research and help solve Korea's care problems as it enters a super-aged society."