“Naver is the only place that has true artificial intelligence (AI) full stack capabilities that range from infrastructure to services.”
“Naver is a company that covers all portfolios that the government wants to do, with full stack capabilities and even global business,” Nakho Sung NAVER Cloud Hyperscale Technology Director (photo) said in an interview at Naver Green Factory in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on the 11th. In the field of AI, Fullstack refers to the operation of everything from infrastructure such as AI cloud to application services for users. Recently, NAVER Cloud, along with SK Telecom, LG AI Research Institute, NCAI, and Upstage, was selected as an elite team for the government’s “Independent AI Foundation Model” project and entered full-fledged development competition.
Competitors also talk about full-stack capabilities, but Naver has the most overwhelming advantage when it comes to its experience of building a super-large language model called Hyperclova, operating high-performance computing (HPC), and designing various services. The future that General Manager Sung is drawing is to build a new ecosystem through a platform beyond simple AI technology. In other words, it supports making vertical AI agents in various fields easy and creates a platform where they are connected to each other. Naver plans to allow AI agents to accumulate and manage personal data on this platform so that the entire nation can receive customized AI services.
The core of the technology axis is ‘omni-modal’. Omnimodal looks similar to multimodal, but it differs in that it simultaneously learns various sensory information such as text, image, and voice from the beginning, rather than adding other types of data after learning text in the early stages.
The reason for focusing on omnimodal is also in line with creating AI services that can be easily experienced by the whole nation. In addition to Naver, Twelve Labs, Seoul National University Industry-Academic Cooperation Group, KAIST, Pohang University of Science and Technology Industry Cooperation Group, Korea University Industry-Academic Cooperation Group, and Hanyang University Industry-Academic Cooperation Group are participating in the NAVER Cloud consortium. General manager Sung expressed strong confidence in the final team selection of the project, saying, “We have to win, and we can win.”
[Reporter Ahn Seonje]