Latest news with #NaverCloud
Korea Herald
2 days ago
- Business
- Korea Herald
Naver launches joint ventures to power Saudi smart city projects
Naver Cloud, the cloud service subsidiary of Korean tech giant Naver, said Wednesday it has completed an agreement with Saudi Arabia's National Housing Company to establish a strategic joint venture aimed at expanding smart city and digitalization initiatives in the Middle Eastern country. The new entity, Naver Innovation, will be the first business unit under Naver Arabia, the internet giant's base for Middle East operations. The joint venture is backed by investments from Naver Cloud and NHC's subsidiary, NHC Innovation, according to Naver. Naver Innovation will focus on developing and operating a map-based application for public transportation tailored for Saudi citizens and travelers. It also plans to expand into Naver's ongoing digital twin platform projects in the country. Digital twin platforms, which virtually replicate real-world environments, are used to support smart city development. In 2023, Naver secured a deal with the Saudi government to create digital twin platform for Riyadh and four other cities in the country. The upcoming platform, which will feature cutting-edge functions such as flood prediction, traffic flow analysis and population distribution analysis, is set to be deployed soon across Saudi cities. 'This joint venture demonstrates Saudi Arabia's commitment to introduce world-class technologies while localizing solutions to meet the needs of the local community,' said Ryan Alaql, CEO of NHC Innovation. 'Together with Naver Cloud, we will create a smart city that meets the goals of sustainability, innovation and improved quality of life under the Saudi Vision 2030.' 'It is a meaningful opportunity to work with local partners in driving Saudi Arabia's digital transformation,' said Naver Cloud CEO Kim Yoo-won. 'Naver Cloud will actively cooperate as Saudi Arabia leads innovation in the smart city sector.'
Korea Herald
23-05-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
Naver Cloud teams up with Siam AI to develop Thai-language LLM, AI agent
Naver leadership meets with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to discuss building sovereign AI systems, AI data center operations Naver Cloud has partnered with Thailand's leading artificial intelligence firm to develop a Thai-language large language model and tourism-specialized AI agent in a strategic push to bring AI sovereignty to Southeast Asia. According to the Korean IT firm Friday, it forged an agreement with Siam AI Cloud to co-develop a Thai-language LLM and launch AI services customized for Thailand's booming tourism industry. The partnership signals Naver's first major step in exporting its sovereign AI strategy beyond Korea, the company said. Top executives from both companies attended the signing ceremony held on the sidelines of the Nvidia Cloud Partner Summit in Taiwan. Naver Cloud and Siam AI Cloud were sole partners representing their respective countries in the summit. Under the agreement, Naver Cloud will combine its LLM development and operational experience with Siam AI's vast Thai-language data and graphic processing unit infrastructure, aiming to create a Thai-language LLM by the end of 2025. Based on the LLM model, the two companies plan to launch an AI agent tailored to Thailand's high-demand tourism industry. Naver Cloud said it aims to ramp up collaboration to support the development of a diverse model lineup, scalable across sectors including healthcare, public services and education. 'This collaboration goes beyond building an LLM,' Naver Cloud CEO Kim Yoo-won said. 'It's about empowering Thailand with the technical capability and control to independently develop and operate its own AI models, paving the way for other countries seeking to establish their own AI ecosystems.' Kim also underscored how Naver Cloud is positioned to provide tailored sovereign AI solutions with strengths across the entire AI value chain — from AI services and data to supercomputing infrastructure, cloud services and data centers. During the Taiwan trip, Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon, Naver Chair Lee Hae-jin who founded the IT giant, and Kim also met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to discuss strategies for building sovereign AI systems and expanding large-scale AI data center operations, the company said. The Naver delegation also met with Taiwan's top telecom operator, Chunghwa Telecom, to discuss broader expansion strategies for the Southeast Asian market.
