From tech giants to startups, South Korean gamers are growing giant language fashions tailor-made to their very own language and tradition, able to compete with world heavyweights like OpenAI and Google.
Final month, the nation launched its most formidable sovereign AI initiative so far, pledging ₩530 billion, (about $390 million), to 5 native corporations constructing large-scale foundational fashions.
The transfer underscores Seoul’s need to chop reliance on overseas AI applied sciences, hoping to strengthen nationwide safety and preserve a tighter management over information within the AI period.
The organizations picked by the Ministry of Science and ICT to compete have been LG AI Analysis, SK Telecom, Naver Cloud, NC AI, and the startup Upstage.
Each six months, the federal government will assessment the primary cohort’s progress, reduce underperformers, and proceed funding the frontrunners till simply two stay to guide the nation’s sovereign AI drive.
Every participant is bringing a unique benefit to South Korea’s AI race. iinfoai spoke with a number of of the chosen corporations about how they plan to tackle OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and the remainder on their residence turf. NC AI declined to remark.
LG AI Analysis: Exaone
LG AI Analysis, the R&D unit of South Korean big LG Group, provides Exaone 4.0, a hybrid reasoning AI mannequin. The most recent model blends broad language processing with the superior reasoning options first launched within the firm’s earlier Exaone Deep mannequin.
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Exaone 4.0 (32B) already scores moderately nicely in opposition to opponents on Synthetic Evaluation’s Intelligence Index benchmark (as does Upstage’s Photo voltaic Pro2). However it plans to enhance and transfer up the ranks by way of its deep entry to real-world {industry} information starting from biotech to superior supplies and manufacturing.
It’s coupling that information with a give attention to refining the information earlier than feeding to the fashions to coach. As a substitute of chasing sheer scale, LG needs to make your complete course of extra clever, so its AI can ship actual, sensible worth that goes past what general-purpose fashions can supply. “That is our basic strategy,” co-head Honglak Lee instructed iinfoai.
LG is enhancing its fashions by way of acquainted techniques: providing them by way of APIs, then utilizing the real-world information generated by customers of these companies to coach the mannequin to enhance.
“As LG’s fashions enhance, our companions can ship higher companies, which in flip generate higher financial worth and even richer information,” he stated.
Nonetheless, as an alternative of chasing large GPU clusters, LG AI Analysis is specializing in effectivity, getting probably the most out of each chip, and creating industry-specific fashions, he talked about. The purpose isn’t to outspend the worldwide giants however to outsmart them with high-performing, but extra environment friendly, AI.
South Korea’s telco big SK Telecom (SKT) launched its private AI agent A. (pronounced A-dot) service means again in late 2023 and simply rolled out its new giant language mannequin, A.X, this July.
Constructed on high of the Chinese language open supply mannequin from Alibaba Cloud, Qwen 2.5, A.X 4.0 is available in two fashions, a hefty 72-billion-parameter model and a lighter 7B model.
SK says that A.X 4.0 processes Korean inputs about 33% extra effectively than GPT-4o did, underscoring its native language edge. (OpenAI’s GPT 5.0 comparability information is just not out there.) SKT additionally open sourced its A.X 3.1 fashions earlier this summer time. In the meantime, the A. service provides options like AI name summaries and auto-generated notes. As of August 2025, it’s already pulled in about 10 million subscribers.
SK’s edge is its versatility, as a result of it has entry to data from its telecom community starting from navigation to taxi-hailing.
“SK Telecom’s function is to behave as a bridge between cutting-edge mannequin analysis and real-world impression. With our telecom infrastructure, in depth consumer base and confirmed service like A., we carry AI immediately into on a regular basis life, whether or not in customer support, mobility, or manufacturing,” Taeyoon Kim, head of the inspiration mannequin workplace at SK Telecom, instructed iinfoai.
SK Telecom can also be investing in AI infrastructure, utilizing GPUaaS, South Korea’s largest GPU-based service, and constructing a brand new hyperscale AI information heart with AWS. No matter it lacks, it’s partnering to acquire.
“We’re constructing a full-stack ecosystem with Korean AI chipmaker Rebellions, securing trusted information partnerships by way of work with the federal government and universities, and fostering a worldwide analysis community,” stated Kim. “That features tasks like our collaboration with MIT (MGAIC), which applies basis fashions to superior manufacturing and battery and semiconductor innovation.”
Naver Cloud: HyperCLOVA X
Naver Cloud, the cloud companies arm of South Korea’s main web firm, launched its giant language mannequin, HyperClova, in 2021. Two years later, it unveiled an upgraded model, HyperCLOVA X, together with new merchandise powered by the expertise: CLOVA X, an AI chatbot, and Cue, a generative AI-driven search engine positioned as a rival to Microsoft’s CoPilot-enhanced Bing and Google’s AI Overview. It additionally unveiled this yr its multimodal reasoning AI mannequin, HyperCLOVE X Suppose.
Naver Cloud believes the true energy of LLMs is to function “connectors” linking legacy methods and siloed companies to enhance usefulness, in keeping with a Naver spokesperson.
Naver stands out as Korea’s solely firm — and one of many few on this planet — that may genuinely declare to have an “AI full stack.” It constructed its HyperCLOVA X mannequin from scratch and runs the huge information facilities, cloud companies, AI platforms, functions, and shopper companies that carry the expertise to life, the spokesperson defined.
Just like Google — however tuned for South Korea — Naver is embedding its AI into core companies like search, purchasing, maps, and finance. Its benefit is real-world information. It’s AI Procuring Information, as an example, provides suggestions based mostly on what individuals truly need to purchase. Different companies embrace CLOVA Studio, which lets companies construct customized generative AI, and CLOVA Carecall, an AI-powered check-in service geared for seniors dwelling alone.
The Naver spokesperson says besting world AI giants like OpenAI and Google hinges on two issues: perfecting its “recipe” for fashions and securing the capital to scale them. Even so, quite than chasing measurement, the corporate emphasizes sophistication, arguing its AI is already globally aggressive at comparable scales.
Upstage’s Photo voltaic Professional 2
Upstage is the one startup competing within the undertaking. Its Photo voltaic Professional 2 mannequin, launched final July, was the primary Korean mannequin acknowledged as a frontier mannequin by Synthetic Evaluation, placing it within the ring with OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Anthropic, in keeping with Quickly-il Kwon, government vp at Upstage.
Whereas most frontier fashions have 100 billion to 200 billion parameters, Photo voltaic Professional 2 — with simply 31 billion — performs higher for South Koreans and is cheaper, Kwon instructed iinfoai.
“Photo voltaic Professional 2 has outperformed world fashions on main Korean benchmarks. With this undertaking, Upstage goals to attain a Korean language efficiency of 105% of the worldwide commonplace,” Kwon stated.
Upstage goals to distinguish itself by specializing in actual enterprise impression, not simply benchmarks, he stated. So it’s growing specialised fashions for industries like finance, regulation, and drugs, whereas pushing to construct a Korean AI ecosystem led by “AI-native” startups.
