[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: "Achieving Korea's Version of the 'Genesis Mission' Depends on the Independent AI Project"

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 event was set to begin, the atmosphere at the exhibition hall for the "Independent AI Foundation Model Project" first presentation was already heating up. Participants were lining up in front of each company's experience booth, and at some booths, the wait time exceeded 10 minutes. The turnout was much higher than expected, making it difficult to find any empty seats 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 marked the first time that five elite teams-Naver Cloud, SK Telecom, LG AI Research, Upstage, and NC AI-publicly unveiled their development achievements. The focus of the event was on "hands-on experience" rather than technical explanations. Each company set up chatbot demonstrations based on their newly released foundation models, allowing visitors to ask spontaneous questions and compare the AI responses.

Each booth had its own distinct personality. NC AI attracted attention with a demonstration that generated moving 3D characters based on natural language descriptions. Visitors flocked to see how game characters could be designed using sentences. Naver Cloud showcased its omni-modal chatbot, which processes text, image, and video data simultaneously. The company also set up booths for experiencing a Mind Care AI counselor and a Civil Administration Avatar, highlighting the potential for public and everyday applications. One corner of the booth featured stacked boxes of tangerines to promote an agricultural AI agent, which also caught the eye of attendees. LG AI Research unveiled a video AI counselor capable of real-time voice conversations and exhibited a case study of LG Uplus's AI contact center solution.

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 remarked, "Rather than looking at graphs, directly asking questions made the character of each model much more apparent."

On the main stage, each company summarized and presented its technological competitiveness. SK Telecom highlighted its ultra-large model "A.X K1," which boasts 500 billion parameters, emphasizing its scale-based performance and inference capabilities. Naver Cloud underscored the integration of seeing, hearing, 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 such as ChatGPT and Qwen, while reducing training computation to about 30% of previous levels. Upstage unveiled "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 an event for Korea, but a stage for competition that is drawing attention from around the world, including the United States and China." He added, "I believe it is extremely important to create AI co-scientists-colleagues in scientific research-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 commented, "Just six months ago, there were many doubts about whether sovereign AI was possible in Korea, but today we stand at the starting point of new possibilities." He continued, "In this era of civilizational change brought by the great AI transformation, we will marshal all our capabilities so that Korea can rise to become one of the world's top three AI powers."