Naver Corp. CEO Choi Soo-yeon speaks during a conference in Seoul on Aug. 24, 2023, in this photo provided by the company.
SEOUL, Aug. 24 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean tech giant Naver Corp. on Thursday unveiled an upgraded version of its hyperscale artificial intelligence model HyperCLOVA X and its conversational chatbot service tailored for the Korean language.
It is Naver’s weapon of choice to win the ongoing global battle for linguistic AI that has intensified since the launch of ChatGPT late last year, which has wowed the world with its detailed responses and articulate answers powered by large amounts of data and computing techniques.
The Korean company said HyperCLOVA X is a backbone model of Naver’s AI technology based on supercomputing and data-analyzing capabilities and operational experiences from its all-in-one online platform, ranging from Korea’s largest search engine to cloud services, email, shopping and other internet products.
Our technologies and experiences that Naver has learned from various sectors, including searching, shopping and booking for decades, support technological competitiveness of our generative AI model HyperCLOVA X,” Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said in a Seoul conference.
“It was possible by our up-to-date technologies into which we’ve steadily invested 22 percent of our operating profit and quality data,” she said, adding that Naver has spent some 1 trillion won (US$754 billion) on AI for the past five years.
To accelerate the company’s massive data-analyzing capabilities, Naver will open a new large data center in the central city of Sejong in November, housing more than 600,000 units of servers.
It will serve as a brain center for the company’s hyperscale AI services, Naver added.
This image provided by Naver Corp. shows its hyperscale AI service HyperCLOVA X released on Aug. 23, 2023.
Choi said her company continues to cooperate with Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s No. 1 memory chipmaker, in developing semiconductor solutions tailored for hyperscale AI models to accelerate the handling of massive AI workloads.
“We’ve been experimenting with our lighter algorithm and received some favorable results, but it’s too early to monetize this,” she said.
“This is one of the biggest pending tech issues that many companies in the sector are facing. We will keep working on it.”
The Korean tech company also said it is in talks with some global partners to develop local models of its generative AI service as part of its global expansion, but refused to disclose the names of them.
“Like our AI solution, a country-specific model can be created by training on data specific to that country,” Choi said. “We can help companies that operate online platforms similar to those of Naver.”
At the same time, Naver also disclosed CLOVA X, a large language model-based AI chatbot, and CUE:, a generative AI search service, both of which are powered by HyperCLOVA X.
Naver said CLOVA X, which will go on beta testing later this day, is a Korean version of ChatGPT led by Naver’s deep understanding of Korean language and culture.
It can give the most appropriate responses to various user demands based on its conversational, versatile AI able to create stories, summarize texts, and encode languages.
CUE:, which will be launched next month, is a new interactive AI chatbot developed specifically for online search.
“Naver is ready to face the new change opened by generative AI,” Choi said. “We will support our sellers, creators and partners to encourage their diversity and grow further with our technology.”
(Yonhap)
