LG AI Research Institute: "Enhancing Performance"... SKT: "Honored", Upstage: "Grateful"

The three consortiums-LG AI Research Institute, SK Telecom, and Upstage-that passed the first evaluation of the government-led Independent Artificial Intelligence (AI) Foundation Model Project have all expressed their welcome for the results.

On January 15, following the Ministry of Science and ICT's announcement of the results from the first phase evaluation of the Independent AI Foundation Model Project, Lim Woohyung, Co-President of LG AI Research Institute, emphasized, "We will further advance 'K-Exaone' to establish it as a leading national AI model that evolves into a global ecosystem."

Paik Kyunghun, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, Im Munyoung, Vice Chairman of the National AI Strategy Committee, and Ha Jungwoo, Chief Secretary for AI Future Planning, are taking a commemorative photo at the first presentation of the "Independent AI Foundation Model" project held on the afternoon of the 30th at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

Co-President Lim added, "This first-phase model serves as a solid foundation for advancing to the frontier level of AI. We will now proceed with full-scale performance enhancement to realize a fully developed K-Exaone with global competitiveness. This outcome marks an important inflection point in our journey, which began with K-Exaone and has never stopped, toward an even greater leap forward."

LG AI Research Institute also stated in its official position released on the same day, "K-Exaone has demonstrated its technological prowess in AI by achieving top scores in benchmark evaluations, expert reviews, and user assessments."

SK Telecom said, "It is an honor to advance to the second phase of the Independent AI Foundation Model Project," and pledged, "We will continue our efforts to develop Korea's AI ecosystem and contribute to its activation, fulfilling our role in propelling Korea into the global top three in AI."

As it prepares for the second evaluation, the SKT consortium plans to expand the scale of parameters and support for multimodal models. SKT stated, "In the second phase, we will add multimodal capabilities and conduct additional training for the model. In the long term, we aim to reach a parameter scale in the trillions."

Upstage also commented, "We are grateful and pleased to have achieved such positive results thanks to the government's generous support," and added, "Starting from the second phase, we will further enhance our technological capabilities by collaborating with institutions such as Stanford and New York University, aiming to develop a world-class model that surpasses those of major tech companies."