[Asia AI Awards] Hancom Pursues AI Technology Independence... Securing Data Sovereignty

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Award

Hancom, which has transformed itself into an artificial intelligence (AI) company based on digital documents, was recognized for its contributions to AI technology self-sufficiency and ecosystem expansion, receiving the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Award at the 2025 Asia AI Awards held at the Korea Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul on December 18.

Hancom has commercialized document AI by combining 35 years of accumulated digital document technology with AI. In particular, the company has established itself as a core partner by consecutively winning large-scale AI transformation projects in the public sector. By demonstrating the AI learning value of HWPX data, the next-generation document format, Hancom is credited with laying the foundation for Korea's data sovereignty and independent AI development.

Hancom received the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Award at the 3rd Asia AI Awards Ceremony held at Maehwa Hall, Press Center, Jung-gu, Seoul on December 18, 2025. Photo by Kang Jinhyung

Hancom is the only company in the world to secure its domestic market with locally developed office software, achieving software technology self-sufficiency in the face of global corporate monopolies. The vast collections of HWP and HWPX documents accumulated by public institutions are considered essential for building independent AI systems that are not reliant on overseas big tech technologies. The latest standard, HWPX, complies with an 'open XML' format that allows machines to easily understand and analyze data, making it optimized for AI to recognize and learn the meaning and structure of data.

The company also operates services that leverage its document-based AI capabilities. The generative AI document creation tool, Hancom Assistant, uses a script engine to generate expert-level documents based solely on natural language commands-a technology that is uniquely held by Hancom and Microsoft worldwide. It is flexibly compatible with various language models, including large language models (LLMs) and small language models (SLMs).

Hancom is participating in government-led AI infrastructure projects as well. The company plays a key role in the implementation of the 'Pan-Government Hyper-Scale AI Common Platform' project, which allows government ministries and local governments to utilize generative AI without security concerns, by supplying AI solutions and establishing the foundation for their use.

Hancom is also a key partner in national AI projects. In the independent AI foundation model development project led by the Ministry of Science and ICT, Hancom is participating as a partner in the LG AI Research consortium, taking on the role of expanding services based on large-scale document data.