Naver, South Korea's leading internet search company, has announced the release of its generative artificial intelligence tool, HyperCLOVA X. Developed by its cloud unit, Naver Cloud, the platform offers an AI chatbot service named CLOVA X and an AI-based search engine called Cue.
- CLOVA X: A ChatGPT-like AI chatbot that launched in beta in English and Korean on August 24.
- Cue: An AI-based search engine scheduled for beta testing in September, with plans to integrate it into Naver's existing search engine in November.
HyperCLOVA X is tailored for creators and enterprise customers and comes as an upgrade to its predecessor, HyperCLOVA, which was launched in 2021. While HyperCLOVA was known to have 204 billion parameters, the specifics for HyperCLOVA X have not been disclosed.
With over 500 AI experts and a large language model boasting over 100 billion parameters, Naver is positioning itself as a significant player in the global AI space.
Naver is also developing multimodal language models that can analyze and generate text, images, videos, and audio. These features are slated for release in the near future.
Naver aims to fill gaps in regions not yet covered by competitors, such as countries with political sensitivities in the Middle East and non-English-speaking nations like Spain and Mexico, in addition to its focus on South Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia.
The company is set to open its second data center, GAK Sejong, which will house 600,000 servers for its generative AI services. Naver has also partnered with Samsung for the development of AI chips for hyperscale AI applications.
Naver's entrance into the generative AI market comes at a time when global tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon are accelerating their own AI development. With its robust technical capabilities and strategic geographic focus, Naver seems poised to carve out a unique space in the rapidly evolving landscape of generative AI technologies.
