Gwangju City Signs Business Agreement with AI Leading Company Saltlux Co., Ltd.

CEO Lee Kyung-il: "Committed to Creating the World's Best AI Ecosystem in Gwangju"

Mayor Lee Yong-seop: "Let's Create Synergy with Saltlux's Management Philosophy and Gwangju"

On the morning of the 11th, Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, attended the business agreement ceremony between Gwangju City and Saltlux Co., Ltd. for the establishment of a Gwangju-type artificial intelligence business foundation in the business room on the 3rd floor of the city hall. After signing the agreement, he took a commemorative photo with the officials. From the left in the photo are Tak Yong-seok, Director of Gwangju Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency; Son Kyung-jong, Director of Artificial Intelligence Industry Bureau; Jo In-cheol, Vice Mayor of Culture and Economy; Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City; Lee Kyung-il, CEO of Saltlux Co., Ltd.; Ahn Jun-hyung, Head of Saltlux Co., Ltd.; Kim Jung-tae, Director of Saltlux Co., Ltd.; and Lee Yoon-jin, Senior Researcher of Saltlux Co., Ltd. Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City.

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 11th that it has signed a business agreement with Saltlux Co., Ltd., which holds the largest number of domestic patents related to artificial intelligence, and will cooperate to create an AI business ecosystem in Gwangju by establishing the "Saltlux Artificial Intelligence Big Data Center" in the Gwangju AI cluster.

Saltlux Co., Ltd. is an AI-specialized company that has focused on securing core technologies in artificial intelligence and big data for the past 20 years since its founding, including machine learning, natural language processing, and big data analysis, and has been growing at a rate of over 20% annually.

Through this agreement, Gwangju City and Saltlux Co., Ltd. will cooperate to establish an AI big data center for discovering data for AI research and development and to nurture related experts, planning to create AI-related specialized jobs by hiring 100 people this year and 200 people next year.

To this end, the "Saltlux Gwangju Office" will be established within this month, and a separate corporation will be founded in the second half of the year.

Saltlux Co., Ltd. plans to develop AI training data based on its own knowledge base of 14 billion items including video, voice, image, and text, and will donate this to Gwangju so that startups and others can utilize it for AI research and entrepreneurial activities.

The main contents of the agreement include ▲ establishment of the AI big data center ▲ nurturing of experts through database construction ▲ technical and policy consultation related to the creation of the Gwangju AI industrial complex and business platform ▲ support for commercialization of AI-based products and services, including startup and job creation.

CEO Lee Kyung-il of Saltlux Co., Ltd. said, "The AI industry is a field where the whole world competes, not just regions, and any city has the potential to develop into a global city depending on choices and leadership," adding, "Through this agreement, we will do our best to establish the world's best AI ecosystem based on public-private win-win cooperation in Gwangju."

In response, Mayor Lee Yong-seop said, "While fighting the coronavirus on one hand, we must prepare for Gwangju's future on the other," and added, "Today, Saltlux, which has been preparing ahead of the rapidly changing era by developing AI and big data platform services, has joined in making Gwangju an 'AI-centered city,' creating great synergy."