South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) has selected a consortium led by Naver Cloud to develop a cybersecurity-focused artificial intelligence foundation model.
The ministry said on the 3rd that the Naver Cloud consortium was chosen as the final project operator after presentation evaluations of the two applicants, the Naver Cloud consortium and a consortium led by SK Telecom (017670).
The evaluation panel was made up of outside experts in AI and cybersecurity. Based on the business plans submitted by each consortium and their presentations, the panel assessed technical capabilities and development experience; the quality and feasibility of development strategies, technologies and goals; and marketability and ripple effects.
Naver Cloud scored highly for assembling a large industry-academia-research consortium with strong technical capabilities and development experience, and for the quality of its development strategy and goals, including the use of multiple agents and harness configurations. The consortium comprises 32 organizations, including LG CNS, LG Uplus, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, the Financial Security Institute, and the industry-academic cooperation foundations of Seoul National University, Korea University, Chung-Ang University and POSTECH.
The consortium will receive a total of 256 B200 graphics processing units (GPUs) over 10 months starting this month. The government plans to supply the GPUs for an initial five months, then extend support for the remaining five months depending on the results of an interim evaluation.
The ministry also plans to sign an agreement with the consortium this month and begin development of the cybersecurity-focused model. "We will immediately form a working group with the selected operator and work to produce results as quickly as possible," a ministry official said.
