[Independent AI Presentation] "National AI" Experienced in Line: A Competition Stage Unfolds in Five Colors (Comprehensive)

Naver, SK Telecom, LG, NC AI, and Upstage Showcase Their First Achievements
Over 1,000 Visitors Gather at the COEX Presentation
Game, Omni-Modal, and Video Counseling: Each Independent AI Reveals Its Unique Strengths
Baek Kyung-hoon: "Achie

On the 30th, in front of the auditorium exhibition hall at COEX, Seoul, the Mind Care Avatar and Civil Administration Avatar experience booths were set up at Naver Cloud's booth. Interactive experiences based on HyperClovaX are available. Photo by Myunghwan Lee

On December 30 at the COEX Auditorium in Seoul, just after 1 p.m., more than an hour before the official start of the event, the atmosphere at the exhibition hall for the "Independent AI Foundation Model Project" 1st Presentation was already heating up. Participants were lining up in front of each company's experience booth, and for some booths, the waiting time exceeded 10 minutes. The crowd was much larger than expected, making it difficult to find an empty seat in the venue.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Baek Kyung-hoon is taking a commemorative photo at the "Independent AI Foundation Model Project 1st Presentation" held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on the afternoon of the 30th. From the front row, left to right: Yang Jae-soo, President of Korea Data Agency; Kim Yoo-won, CEO of Naver Cloud; Hong Jin-bae, President of Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation; Lee Yeon-soo, CEO of NC AI; Kim Sung-hoon, CEO of Upstage; Jung Jae-heon, CEO of SK Telecom; Lim Moon-young, Vice Chairman of National AI Strategy Committee; Baek Kyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister; Ha Jung-woo, Chief of AI Future Planning; Park Yoon-kyu, President of National IT Industry Promotion Agency; Hwang Jong-sung, President of Korea Intelligent Information Society Agency; Sung Nak-ho, Executive Director of Naver Cloud; Choi Jung-kyu, Managing Director of LG AI Research. Photo by Ministry of Science and ICT

The presentation held that day was hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT, and it was the first time that five elite teams-Naver Cloud, SK Telecom, LG AI Research, Upstage, and NC AI-publicly showcased their development achievements. Rather than focusing on technical explanations, the event emphasized hands-on experiences. Each company prepared a chatbot demonstration based on their newly released foundation models, allowing visitors to ask spontaneous questions and compare the AI's responses.

Each booth had a distinct character. NC AI attracted attention by demonstrating the creation of moving 3D characters based on natural language descriptions. Visitors were drawn to scenes where game characters were designed through sentences. Naver Cloud highlighted its omni-modal chatbot capable of processing text, image, and video data simultaneously. The company also set up Mind Care AI Counselor and Civil Administration Avatar experience booths to showcase potential applications in public and daily life sectors. To promote its agricultural AI agent, Naver Cloud stacked boxes of tangerines in one corner of the booth, which also caught visitors' eyes. LG AI Research unveiled a video AI counselor capable of real-time voice conversation and displayed LG Uplus' AI contact center application case.

On the 30th, LG Uplus' AI contact center solution was set up at the booth of LG AI Research Institute in front of the auditorium exhibition hall at COEX, Seoul. Photo by Myunghwan Lee

This presentation focused less on numerical competition, such as "world's best performance," and more on the actual user experience. One participant said, "Rather than looking at graphs, asking questions directly made the model's characteristics much clearer."

On the main stage, each company summarized and presented its technological competitiveness. SK Telecom highlighted its ultra-large model "A.X K1," featuring 500 billion parameters, emphasizing its scale-based performance and inference capabilities. Naver Cloud emphasized that it had integrated seeing AI, listening AI, and writing AI into a single model through its native omni-modal architecture. LG AI Research introduced its AI model "K-Exaone," which achieves performance surpassing global frontier models like ChatGPT and Qwen, while reducing training computation to 30% of previous levels. Upstage revealed "Solar-Open-100B," which accurately understands the context and culture of the Korean language. NC AI focused on industry-specialized AI.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, Paik Kun-hoon, delivers a welcome speech at the 'Independent AI Foundation Model Project 1st Presentation' held at COEX, Gangnam-gu, Seoul on the afternoon of the 30th. Photo by Ministry of Science and ICT

Baek Kyung-hoon, Minister of Science and ICT, who attended the event, said, "The Independent AI Foundation Model Project is not just a Korean event, but a stage of competition attracting global attention, including the United States and China." He added, "I believe it is extremely important to create AI co-scientists-research companions for scientists-in the field of science and technology, and whether we can complete Korea's version of the 'Genesis Mission' depends on the outcome of this project."

Lim Moon-young, Vice Chairman of the National AI Strategy Committee, also remarked, "Just six months ago, there were many doubts about whether sovereign AI was possible in Korea, but today we are standing at the starting point of new possibilities." He continued, "In the midst of the civilizational transformation brought about by the great AI transition, we will mobilize all our capabilities so that Korea can rise to become one of the world's top three AI leaders."