NAVER Cloud will develop an artificial intelligence foundation model with LG CNS to build up South Korea's cybersecurity capabilities in-house.
NAVER Cloud said on the 27th that it had formed a consortium with LG CNS and applied for a government project to develop a specialized AI foundation model for cybersecurity, run by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA). A rival consortium of SK Telecom and Upstage also submitted a bid.
The NAVER Cloud-LG CNS consortium plans to build a model optimized for South Korea's security environment, drawing on full-stack in-house technology spanning AI models, infrastructure, security and data.
NAVER Cloud points to its experience running foundation models in closed-network and on-premise environments in sectors with the strictest security rules, such as nuclear power and finance. The company aims to deliver a model ready for immediate field deployment by combining that with its hands-on monitoring and defense record in protecting NAVER's consumer services against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, along with its data encryption and isolation know-how built on the Cloud Security Assurance Program (CSAP) for public-sector cloud services.
LG CNS has dedicated units across the full range of cybersecurity operations, including red team, blue team and AI security teams, as well as experience in AI transformation projects across a range of industries. It also plans to refine model training using telecom network data from affiliates such as LG Uplus, and to complete the model's functions and performance through testing in complex security environments.
A total of 33 industry, academic and research organizations have joined the consortium, including security firms with offensive and detection technology, major universities researching vulnerabilities and AI safety, and research and public institutions handling national-level threat data and third-party verification. That gives the consortium a structure capable of completing the entire development cycle for a cybersecurity-specific model without relying on outside help.
"As cyber threats grow more sophisticated through the use of AI, internalizing defense systems with proprietary AI technology is central to national security," NAVER Cloud CEO Kim You-won said. "Based on our hands-on security capabilities, we will develop a sovereign security AI that best understands South Korea's cyber threat environment and raise the country's security capabilities to the next level."
