Naver, a Korean technology company whose interests include internet, artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a sovereign AI business with Thailand-headquartered AI and cloud platform firm SIAM.AI for the joint development of a Thai large language model (LLM) and a tourism-specific AI agent.
According to the Korea Times, SIAM.AI plans to use the partnership as a springboard to accelerate the expansion of sovereign AI across the Southeast Asian market.
Under the partnership, Naver Cloud will contribute its experience in building and operating proprietary LLMs, while SIAM.AI will provide extensive Thai-language data and graphics processing unit infrastructure. They two companies will establish a Thai-language model applicable to actual services by the end of this year.
A tourism-specific AI agent will then be made available to meet what is described as strong local demand – although the partners won’t stop there. They aim to expand into various AI-driven industries such as healthcare, public services and academia, for which language models in different sizes will be developed.
In a reference to the now familiar theme of data sovereignty and sovereign AI, Naver Cloud has said it will share its technologies and expertise throughout the process to help Thailand build the capability to independently develop and operate its own AI models and applications.
Indeed, this agreement is another in Naver’s efforts to tap into overseas markets by meeting various countries’ ambitions to secure their AI sovereignty, while warning them about the threat to that sovereignty of generative AIs powered by LLMs developed by tech giants in the US and China.
The agreement was signed during the Nvidia Cloud Partner Summit held in Taiwan. The two signatories are said to believe that Naver’s experience will create synergy with Nvidia’s capabilities in providing hardware infrastructure for countries seeking sovereign AI.
Naver’s plans to establish a Middle Eastern unit in Saudi Arabia, again with a focus on sovereign AI were reported here late last year.
