Samsung Electronics DS (semiconductor) institutional sector has halted the in-house use of Meta's Generative AI model "Llama4" about eight months after adoption. Samsung Electronics upgraded its in-house developed "Gauss" to the O4 model and improved usability by adding an "image recognition and analysis" feature. While the use of external AI models within Samsung Electronics had been restricted for security reasons, in the case of Llama4, a licensing contract became the issue.
According to the industry on the 9th, Samsung Electronics DS institutional sector recently announced via an internal notice that it would end the use of Meta's "Llama4" and introduce the "Gauss O4" model. In "DS Assistant," Samsung Electronics' in-house AI for semiconductor work support, Llama4 was removed on the 28th of last month, and Gauss O4 was applied on the 1st.
Earlier, in April, Samsung Electronics applied Llama4 to DS Assistant, which had been operated only with Gauss. A month later, it additionally introduced Google "Gemma3" and Microsoft (MS) "Phi-4," reshaping DS Assistant into a "multi-model environment." The intent was to break from a closed operational stance and bring Generative AI into semiconductor development to improve efficiency across the board.
The U.S. big tech AIs introduced in-house by Samsung Electronics are "open source" models whose entire architectures are disclosed, allowing free use, modification, distribution, and improvement. However, when releasing Llama4 as open source, Meta restricted it by requiring separate license (use authorization) approval for corporations with more than 700 million monthly active users (MAU). Samsung Electronics, which handles businesses such as home appliances and smartphones in addition to the DS institutional sector, could qualify as an "operator with more than 700 million customers," posing a potential issue.
Meta reportedly also conveyed to Samsung Electronics a request to exercise caution in using Llama4. In response, Samsung Electronics issued an internal notice in June advising against using Llama4. After an internal review, it recently decided to completely halt use without signing a license contract with Meta for Llama4. A semiconductor industry official said, "Within Samsung Electronics, there was an opinion that there was no need to create unnecessary friction with Meta, and I understand the decision to stop use was made as development of a model to replace Llama4 was completed."
Instead of keeping Llama4 in its in-house work AI, Samsung Electronics upgraded the performance of its own model. Developed by the AI Center, the DS institutional sector's chief information officer (CIO) organization, the Gauss O4 model newly introduced in-house is said, by internal evaluation, to have significantly improved accuracy and response speed compared with the previous version. It also transitions smoothly to an AI agent form, allowing it to be used as a customized work support tool by department and job category after fine-tuning. The Samsung Electronics AI Center, in particular, added image recognition and analysis for the first time in this model to improve employee usability.
Samsung Electronics plans to place limits on introducing external AI that operates based on the cloud. It will maintain a strategy of improving work efficiency by enhancing the performance of its own AI and introducing models that can be built on-premises. Samsung Electronics said in an internal notice, "We plan to introduce the 'best-in-class model' (SOTA, State-of-the-Art) into our in-house AI."