LG and Upstage Stand Alongside Global Companies
Dell Predicts Increased Investment in Korean Sovereign AI in Report
Cost and Interdepartmental Conflicts Hinder Progress
South Korean artificial intelligence (AI) companies are delivering notable achievements on the global stage one after another, signaling positive prospects for the country's goal of becoming one of the "top three AI powers." These successes are also bolstering efforts to advance sovereign AI, which aims to increase the nation's independence in AI technology and infrastructure without relying on foreign companies.
According to the IT industry on July 23, AI models from LG AI Research, which have been released as open source, were selected as "notable AI models" by Epoch AI, a nonprofit research organization in the United States. The models recognized include the inference-specialized model Exaone Deep, the pathology image analysis model Exaone Path 2.0, and Exaone 4.0, which integrates language generation and inference. The list of notable AI models by Epoch AI is known to be referenced by the Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) when it compiles its annual list of outstanding AI models.
Solar Pro 2, a next-generation inference AI model released by domestic startup Upstage, received a score of 58 on the intelligence index of global AI analytics firm Artificial Analysis, ranking 12th overall among all models. It was evaluated as highly competitive in terms of price compared to models from OpenAI, Google, and Meta. South Korean semiconductor design company Furiosa AI has fully implemented its second-generation AI inference accelerator, Renegade, in LG Exaone. Based on this collaboration, the two companies plan to launch an enterprise Exaone solution powered by Renegade. Renegade is considered an alternative that can partially address the dependency on graphics processing units (GPUs), a market virtually monopolized by Nvidia.
The government's push for sovereign AI as part of its goal to become a "top three AI power" is raising industry expectations. Dell Technologies recently released a report analyzing sovereign AI strategies in six Asia-Pacific countries, including South Korea, stating, "While the adoption of sovereign AI in South Korea was moderate in 2024 (27%), the number of government agencies investing in it is expected to double by 2026."
The main factors hindering sovereign AI are "cost issues" and "conflicts of interest between government departments." Half of survey respondents cited cost as the biggest obstacle to sovereign AI, followed by interoperability issues (47%). Interoperability issues refer to the fact that various government departments are pursuing AI projects independently rather than in an integrated manner, which could lead to future conflicts of interest.
A government agency official interviewed emphasized the importance of partnerships for the success of sovereign AI. He said, "The entire ecosystem?including infrastructure, computing resources, applications, and domain-specific technology providers?must work together in collaboration."
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