The application deadline for South Korean government’s flagship artificial intelligence (AI) initiative, the Independent AI Foundation Model Project, closes on Monday afternoon. Leading contenders for the consortium include tech giants Naver Corporation (Naver), LG AI Research, NC AI, SK Telecom, KT Corporation (KT), and AI startup, Upstage AI.
The project aims to develop homegrown AI technology that rivals global leading models. The government is pushing its AI for All policy, focusing on distributing high-quality AI as open-source.
The selection process will initially choose up to five elite teams, then narrow them down through staged evaluations. With a target of achieving 95% performance compared to global models, only companies with proven experience in creating large language models (LLMs) are viable candidates to lead the consortium.
Unlike previous unsuccessful attempts to establish a national AI computing center, this initiative has garnered strong interest from the tech industry.
The frontrunners are LG AI Research, known for its Exaone series, and Naver, creator of the HyperCLOVA series. Naver recently open-sourced a lightweight version called HyperCLOVA X SEED in April.
Gaming giant NCSoft is entering the race through its subsidiary NC AI, established in February. NC AI recently unveiled four versions of its multimodal AI, Varco Vision 2.0, for research purposes. NCSoft has been integrating AI into game development since 2011 and is recognized as a pioneer in proposing open-source LLMs.
In the telecommunications sector, KT has shown interest by releasing Mi:dm 2.0 as open-source, while SK Telecom recently unveiled its A.X 3.1 model. LG Uplus is expected to join the consortium led by its affiliate, LG AI Research.
Among AI startups, Upstage AI and Konan Technology have announced their intentions to participate. Upstage AI’s next-generation inference model, Solar Pro 2, recently ranked 12th in a performance survey by global research firm Artificial Analysis, catching the eye of tech mogul Elon Musk.
Other potential participants include Kakao Corporation with Kanana, Lotte Innovate with iMember 3.0, and tech firms Saltlux and ESTsoft.
However, the project’s open-source direction has sparked debate within the industry. The Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plans to heavily weigh open-source commitments during consortium selection, offering to reduce companies’ financial burdens based on their level of open-source commitment.
An industry insider explained that large corporations with diverse business portfolios face minimal risks in sharing foundational models. They can instead focus on launching value-added services based on these models, fostering ecosystem development.
The insider continued by mentioning that on the flip side, smaller companies specializing solely in AI may find open-source to be a double-edged sword. The insider emphasized that if core technologies become widely shared, large corporate partners may have little incentive for future collaborations.
Despite these concerns, industry voices agree that there are substantial benefits to be gained, including valuable development references and public support for graphics processing unit (GPU) resources.