Google Joins Hands with Korea: "We Will Become AI Partners"

"Our mission at Google is to contribute to Korea's ability to lead the AI industry," says Kim Kyung-hoon, head of Google Korea.

Global tech giant Google has joined hands with the Korean government, taking on the role of a cooperation partner for talent cultivation and research and development (R&D) in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) in Korea. The move, following Google's preemptive launch of Korean language service for the AI chatbot 'Bert', is seen as a step forward in Google's aggressive strategy to capture the Korean AI market.

Yoshi Matthias (right), Vice President of Google Engineering and Research, is demonstrating Google's real-time translator application to Lee Jong-ho, Minister of Science and ICT, at 'AI Week 2023' held at the Grand InterContinental Hotel in Samsung-dong, Seoul on the 13th. provided by Yonhap

Google: "We Will Train 500 AI Talents Annually in Korea"

On the 13th, Google and the Ministry of Science and ICT held an 'AI Week' event at the Grand InterContinental Hotel in Gangnam, Seoul. During his keynote speech that day, Kim Kyung-hoon, head of Google Korea, announced plans for collaboration with the Ministry, saying, "We will emerge as a partner for Korea's AI talents."

First, Google's research team and Korea's AI research organization 'AI Innovation Hub' will share their latest research results and promote joint research. Google also plans to more than double the number of participants in the 'Machine Learning Boot Camp', a program for cultivating AI talents in Korea, from 200 last year to 500 this year. Google is also introducing digital skilling programs for non-IT majors that have been offered overseas.

The cultivation of AI specialists, the 'food for the future', is a core national task for the Yoon Seok-youl government. Minister of Science and ICT, Lee Jong-ho said, "In order to gain a leading position in the global AI market, which is becoming fiercely competitive with super-large AIs, it is important to make efforts to develop and disseminate independent super-large AI models by domestic companies, and to enhance technological capabilities and make efforts to advance overseas through cooperation with global companies such as Google." He welcomed Google's decision.

As the scope of cooperation with Google expands, it is expected that the AI technology capabilities of domestic companies will improve. Kim cited the case of NCSoft's successful development of a new language model in collaboration with Google Cloud as an example of the advanced state of Korean companies' AI technology.

Google is Getting Closer to Korea

Since announcing 'AlphaGo', which played a Go match against Lee Sedol in 2016, Google has been leading AI development. In May, Google launched a Korean language service for the generative AI, 'ChatGPT's competitor, Bert. Google plans to soon introduce a feature in Bert that understands image information and generates additional answers in Korean.

Google's aggressive approach to the Korean market is interpreted as a conscious move against domestic big tech companies. Google's global search market share is in the 90% range, but it lags significantly behind Naver in Korea. However, in the AI field, global big tech companies like Google and Microsoft (MS) have a dominant lead. This is why Google is believed to be making a preemptive move into the Korean market to monopolize the early stages of the AI market.

However, Yoshi Matthias, VP of Google Engineering and Research, who visited Korea that day, said in response to a related question, "The field we are in is not a zero-sum game. The more participants, the more opportunities we can bring."