NC AI Evolves from Gaming to Vertical AI... "LLM Released as Open Source"

NCSoft's artificial intelligence (AI) subsidiary, NC AI, is emerging as a vertical (specialized) AI company. NC AI was spun off from NCSoft and launched as an independent corporation in February 2025.

According to the IT industry on June 24, NC AI independently developed its large language model (LLM) 'VARCO' last year. VARCO enhanced Korean language performance by combining its proprietary foundation model technology with NC AI's fine-tuning capabilities. In addition, the company introduced 'VARCO LLM 2.0', which offers improved multilingual support, and 'VARCO Judge LLM', an evaluation model for verifying LLM performance.

NCSoft Pangyo R&D Center. Courtesy of NCSoft

The VARCO LLM has been released as open source so that anyone can use it. NC AI has made this model available on the AI developer platform 'Hugging Face', allowing startups and small and medium-sized enterprises to utilize it freely.

The company is also introducing solutions that embody its focus on vertical AI. A representative example is 'VARCO ArtFashion', a generative AI model specialized in fashion. Based on a model trained on fashion-specific terminology and trends, designers can enter prompts in natural language and automatically generate design drafts. The model also supports various features such as changing design fabrics.

NC AI has also secured technological capabilities in its core business area of game AI. Its AI NPC (non-player character) conversation system analyzes player dialogue patterns in real time to provide customized quests and lines. On global servers, real-time multilingual chat translation based on VARCO LLM is applied. The company has also commercialized a variety of AI technologies, including in-game text-to-speech (TTS), voice cloning, emotional acting, and motion capture.

AI voice synthesis, voice cloning, and AI dubbing technologies are already being used in actual content. In an online video service (OTT) drama released in the first half of this year, NC AI's voice synthesis technology was applied, allowing actors' voices to be converted into foreign languages while improving dubbing quality.

NC AI is opening all of its core AI technologies to external users in the form of SaaS (Software as a Service) and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). An NC AI official stated, "NC AI is no longer a company that develops technology only for NC games," adding, "We will provide APIs at affordable prices so that indie game developers, educational startups, and others can use our technology to create content."

Lee Yeonsu, CEO of NC AI, said, "We will continue to develop not only LLMs that will serve as the foundation for the advancement of domestic AI technology, but also innovative AI services that add real value across industries," and added, "We aim to establish ourselves as a partner that goes beyond providing technology to deliver both efficiency and productivity."