KT Bows Out... Additional Elite AI Team Recruitment Shifts to Startup-Led Competition (Comprehensive)

Additional Recruitment Launched After Unexpected First-Stage Results
Naver, Kakao, and KT Announce Non-Participation
Startups Like Motif Technologies and Trillion Labs Express Intent to Join

Yonhap News Agency

With KT deciding not to participate in the government's additional recruitment for the "Elite Team for Independent AI Foundation Model," the competitive landscape is shifting toward startups. The project, originally designed as a competition among four elite teams, started with three teams after both Naver Cloud and NC AI were unexpectedly eliminated in the first-stage evaluation. Additional recruitment to fill the vacancy began today. However, with Naver Cloud, Kakao, and now KT all confirming their non-participation, the competition is increasingly likely to be led by startups rather than large corporations.

On January 23, KT announced, "We have decided not to participate in the additional recruitment for the elite team selection." KT explained, "Based on our accumulated capabilities in AI, networks, and data, we will continue to explore various ways to contribute to strengthening Korea’s AI competitiveness according to our own strategies."

The government will be recruiting one additional elite team from today until February 12. The additional team will be evaluated on both its technological capabilities-enabling meaningful competition with the existing elite teams-and its potential to contribute to the growth and expansion of the domestic AI ecosystem. If a majority of expert evaluators determine that the standards have not been met, no additional team may be selected. The selected team will receive support equivalent to the existing elite teams, including access to 768 B200 GPUs, joint data purchasing, construction and processing support, and the designation as a "K-AI Enterprise."

Prior to KT, Naver Cloud, Kakao, and NC AI had already officially announced they would not reapply, leading to assessments that the participation momentum among major players has weakened. In contrast, startups are stepping up to the challenge. Motif Technologies has expressed its intention to participate in the additional recruitment, and Trillion Labs has also shown its determination to reapply.

Taking into account the development period for the additional team, the government plans to conduct a stage evaluation around early August. Within the existing evaluation framework, it will select benchmarks targeting major global leaderboards and is also considering strengthening the "originality" criteria in the expert evaluation items.