NC reorganizes AI research division... Transforms into 'Research Headquarters' directly under CEO

NCSoft has reorganized its artificial intelligence (AI) research and development (R&D) organization into a research headquarters directly under the CEO.

According to industry sources on the 5th, NCSoft has integrated the R&D organizations, which were previously separated into the AI Center and the NLP (Natural Language Processing) Center under CRO (Chief Research Officer) Jaehee Lee, into the 'Research Headquarters' directly under CEO Taekjin Kim. The head of the Research Headquarters will be Executive Director Yeonsu Lee, who previously served as the head of the NLP Center.

The AI Center, which researched non-linguistic AI technologies such as game AI and virtual humans, has been reorganized into the AI Tech Center, and the NLP Center, responsible for developing language models including the large language model (LLM) 'VARCO,' has been converted into the VARCO Center and placed under the Research Headquarters.

Professor Jaehee Lee of Seoul National University's Department of Computer Science, who was recruited as the Chief Research Officer at NCSoft in April 2022, will step down from the executive position after about two years and remain as an advisor. It is known that approximately 300 AI R&D staff members are currently working under the Research Headquarters.

NCSoft explained that the reorganization is unrelated to any reduction in AI personnel or investment cuts. An NCSoft representative stated, "We plan to focus our capabilities on utilizing the AI technologies developed so far in actual game development to shorten development time and improve the quality of the results."