LG aims for global AI elite with next-gen Exaone platform

Korea Herald

4 days ago

Following founder's Cabinet appointment, LG AI Research's new leaders set sights on global top-three status
LG AI Research unveiled on Tuesday its evolving Exaone ecosystem, introducing a series of its latest and newly developed Exaone-based AI models and services co-developed with global partners.
At the 'LG AI Talk Concert 2025' held at LG Sciencepark in Seoul, the institute showcased its lineup of AI innovations built on proprietary foundation models, including Exaone 4.0, Korea's first hybrid AI model combining reasoning and generative capabilities and Exaone Path 2.0, a precision medical AI system.
To secure global competitiveness, the institute aims to expand its Exaone across all major industries, including biotechnology and finance.
"The evolution of agentic AI directly leads to physical AI, a technology that transforms the real world. LG AI Research will accelerate the development of physical AI technology, enabling AI to perceive, judge, and alter actual environments,' Lee Hong-lak, co-president who was newly appointed Monday, said.
While LG largely kept its Exaone models out of the public's reach as a B2B product, the company first unveiled its cutting-edge Exaone 4.0 model via API through the Friendly AI inference platform for companies and institutions, enabling real-world business integration.
Another major unveiling was Exaone 4.0 VL, a multimodal vision-language model. It is capable of interpreting complex professional documents, images and molecular structures.
LG AI Research said the model outperformed Meta's Llma 4 Scout in internal benchmarks, positioning it as a key component of the Exaone ecosystem – serving as its 'eyes' in real world applications.
Also unveiled for the first time include the beta version of ChatExaone, an enterprise AI agent designed for secure internal use and previously limited to LG Group employees. The beta is currently available only to enterprise or business accounts.
Exaone Data Foundry, a platform that streamlines the production of high-quality training data, and Exaone On-Premise, a full-stack enterprise AI solution built entirely with Korean hardware and software for deployment in secure and independent environments, were also unveiled for the first time during the event.
Arman Sahovic, APAC Head of Data Platform Solutions at the London Stock Exchange Group, introduced business intelligence services developed with Exaone. Sahovic explained that LSEG and LG AI Research are collaborating to create a service that predicts investment asset return trends and generates reports based on LSEG's data, news and disclosure information, thereby aiding investment decisions globally.
At the event, chief researchers at LG AI Research expressed their ambition to become one of the global top three players in the AI field. Their immediate goal is to lead in generative and agentic AI, with a longer-term vision to pioneer the era of physical AI, where systems can reason autonomously and take action to solve real-world problems.
'The race to secure AI technology is no longer just a corporate issue — it has expanded into a competition between nations. Without a self-sustaining ecosystem, dependency deepens, and we risk falling behind. Building our own ecosystem is essential,' said Kim Yoo-chul, head of Strategic Division at the institute.
Lee Hwa-young, vice president leading AI Biz Dev and DX Group, also urged for government support in infrastructure.
'To build good AI, you need data, talent, technology and infrastructure. LG has everything except infrastructure,' Lee said. 'The government is now stepping in to build that infrastructure, and we are working hard to stay at the forefront of technology and become one of the global top three in AI.'
The institute's two co-Presidents succeeding Bae Kyung-hoon following his appointment as Minister of Science and ICT, also made their first official appearance since their appointments. Lim Woo-hyung, one of the co-presidents, said he was proud of Bae's new role and vowed to continue leading the institute with dedication.
'Our goal is not just to advance AI technology, but to apply it directly in industrial settings and create real business value. We're actively exploring how to strengthen AI capabilities across LG affiliates and accelerate digital transformation,' Lim said.
Co-head Lee Hong-lak said, 'I will work to elevate LG AI Research to global excellence. We will continue developing Exaone into a world-class technology, support its adoption across the group and help uncover new growth engines.'