| Yossi Matias, right, vice president of engineering & research at Google, demonstrates the company's translator app to ICT Minister Lee Jong-ho during the AI for Korea 2023 event held at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas hotel, Thursday. Courtesy of Ministry of Science and ICT |
US tech giant promises to help nurture AI experts here
By Baek Byung-yeul
Korea has stepped up cooperation with Google to strengthen R&D capabilities and nurture professionals in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry as it aims to become a global AI powerhouse, the science ministry said Thursday.
The Ministry of Science and ICT and Google jointly hosted the AI for Korea 2023 event in Seoul, from Thursday to Saturday to discuss the future of the AI industry and look into the current status of AI technologies from domestic and overseas AI firms. The event also offers tech sessions for students learning AI.
The ministry said that the event was organized to expand and globalize Korea's AI industry, which has been moving dynamically in recent years. The Ministry of Science and ICT and Google MSIT plan to use the event as an opportunity to expand collaboration in human resource development and R&D to advance the country's AI sector.
“We hope that this event will be an opportunity to expand our cooperation with Google, which has a world-leading AI capability, to help AI services developed by Korean startups to go abroad and further strengthen our AI capabilities through joint research,” ICT Minister Lee Jong-ho said at the event.
To help foster AI professionals, the ministry said Google will expand the number of participants in its Machine Learning Bootcamp program here from 200 people in 2022 to 500 people this year. The Machine Learning Bootcamp is a program that supports university students majoring in AI as well as software developers with deep learning training and certification.
The company will also introduce a new digital education program here for non-majors without relevant degrees or work experience.
In addition, Google began operating the Startup School program this year, which provides students and entrepreneurs the education they need to build successful startups that can compete in the global marketplace.
The ICT ministry and Google will hold academic exchanges related to AI research and will make it a regular event as well. The ministry added the content and the methods of joint research will be announced later this year.
During the event, Lee Hwal-suk, co-founder and chief technology officer at local AI company, Upstage, also delivered a presentation elaborating on the potential and numerous business prospects within the generative AI market.
Lee introduced AskUp, the company's generative chat AI service with a user base of 1.3 million, saying that the service has helped Upstage solidify its leading position in the industry. The service is available through messenger platforms such as KakaoTalk and LINE.
He also introduced AskUp Seargest, an enterprise solution that combines hyper-personalized searches and suggests features with its AskUp chat interface.
“Upstage will continue to collaborate with Google and other tech companies to enhance the utilization of generative AI applications and foster responsible AI development,” the CTO said.