The Ministry of Science and ICT has named five elite teams to lead the development of Korea’s sovereign AI foundation models, marking the start of an ambitious push to create globally competitive artificial intelligence systems.
Following written and presentation evaluations, the ministry selected Naver Cloud, Upstage, SK Telecom, NC AI, and LG Management Development Institute’s AI Research Center from an initial pool of 15. All five demonstrated advanced technical capabilities, innovative development strategies, and strong potential for expanding Korea’s AI ecosystem.
Each team will pursue large-scale AI models with different focuses, from Naver Cloud’s “Omni Foundation Model” integrating text, audio, image, and video for nationwide public access, to Upstage’s “Solar WBL” aimed at AI technology sovereignty and mass adoption across sectors. SK Telecom plans a post-transformer multimodal model for “K-AI” services, NC AI will develop industrial domain-optimized foundation models with its “DomainOps” framework, and LG’s AI institute will build the “K-EXAONE” frontier model for both general-purpose and specialized applications.
The government will provide extensive support, including up to 10 billion KRW in jointly purchased datasets, 2.8 billion KRW in team-specific dataset development, high-quality broadcast data, and—where applicable—GPU resources. Upstage will also receive assistance in recruiting top overseas AI researchers.
Minister Baek Kyung-hoon said the project represents “the starting point of AI for all” and pledged full government backing for the growth of Korea’s sovereign AI ecosystem.
The teams will finalize agreements in early August before beginning development. By year’s end, the first evaluation will narrow the group to four, with public and expert contests planned to showcase progress. The initiative aims to boost AI accessibility for the public, drive industrial AI transformation, and enhance national capabilities in defense, security, and the economy.
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