South Korea’s Naver targets foreign governments with the latest AI model similar to ChatGPT

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

Naver, South Korea’s leading internet search engine, is ready to offer tailored versions of its latest ChatGPT-like AI model to foreign governments concerned about controls on US data.

Unlike Microsoft and Google’s focus on universal AI models, Naver wants to develop localized AI applications for politically sensitive countries in the Arab world, as well as for non-English speakers countries like Spain and Mexico, where governments are eager to have their own AI systems customized for their political and cultural contexts.

“This will be a huge business as sovereign AI technology becomes increasingly important for data protection,” said Sung Nako, a Naver executive in charge of hyperscale AI development, which plans to organize computing power and data in the cloud at scale train and manage artificial intelligence.

In an interview with the FT, he compared exporting Naver’s AI models to building nuclear power plants overseas and helping those countries run them, arguing the company could export at much lower prices than rivals. westerners like Amazon. Naver recently signed a preliminary agreement with Saudi Arabia to provide IT services, including artificial intelligence tools, to help the country transition into a digital economy.

“It is becoming like a new cold war as the US government now has the authority to look into the data and information stored in the cloud systems of American companies,” Sung said, pointing to the reluctance of several countries to use cloud systems and US AI due to security concerns.

However, experts warn that Naver may be too optimistic about overseas sales of its AI systems, given its previous failures to take its search engine overseas, despite its dominance in the Korean market.

“Naver’s AI algorithms are not standardized and are too customized for Korean services, unlike Google’s, for example,” said Wi Jong-hyun, an economics professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. “Applying its systems for other countries is not easy, and customizing them for each different country requires huge financial and human resources, which I don’t think Naver is ready for yet.”

Naver says it will continue to prioritize its domestic market with HyperClova X, its update to its ChatGPT-like AI that is expected to launch this summer. It will be used to improve your own research and purchasing services while providing customized versions for businesses.

“We are about eight months behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT in terms of technology, but we are much better than Chat GPT in terms of Korean services,” Sung said.

“We are clearly focusing on Korea and Japan for now, but we are also looking at more overseas markets as localization will be key in the AI ​​race,” he added.

South Korea is one of the few countries where the Google search engine has failed to dominate. Naver has a 61% market share compared to Google’s 29%, according to Statista.

However, the company is now likely to face stiffer competition in Korean-language AI services, with Google choosing Korean and Japanese as the first foreign-language services for its AI-powered Bard chatbot.

“Now, we’re facing a bigger threat in our core market, with Google’s Bard,” admitted Sung.

The Korean firm has other lucrative businesses, such as its LINE messaging app and services, and operates popular entertainment platforms for webtoon AND K-pop fandom.

It has been at the forefront of South Korea’s efforts to develop an AI ecosystem, with the HyperClova AI model, developed in 2021, being used for its various services since last year.

Naver has also partnered with Samsung Electronics to develop AI-optimized chips, with the Korean government eager to develop the technology as the country’s next growth engine thanks to the strength of semiconductors and well-developed IT infrastructure.