Seongnam: Lee Hae-jin, the founder of South Korea's leading online portal Naver, returned to the company's board as chairperson on Wednesday, signaling a push for a sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) strategy within the domestic tech industry. Lee's appointment as the chair of Naver Corp.'s board was confirmed at the company's annual general shareholders' meeting held in Seongnam, south of Seoul. Lee, who has been serving as the company's global investment officer (GIO), will oversee Naver's overarching business strategies.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Lee had previously stepped down as board chairperson in March 2017 and left the board entirely in 2018 to focus on expanding Naver's global footprint in his role as GIO. His return comes amid growing concerns that South Korea is falling behind global tech giants in the fast-evolving space of AI model development.
Naver is expected to bolster the development of HyperClova X, the company's proprietary LLM first introduced in 2023. The company aims to integrate AI across key services, including search and commerce platforms, to enhance its existing ecosystem. "I think it's incredibly unfortunate for the entire world to rely on just one or two search engines or AI platforms. To preserve the diversity of the internet, we need a wide range of search engines and services," Lee told reporters after the shareholders' meeting.
Choi Soo-yeon, chief executive officer (CEO) of Naver, who has been reappointed as company chief, said, "AI should not be a standalone service but must be naturally embedded into our core businesses, such as search, advertising, commerce and content."
Despite HyperClova X's strengths as a Korean language-focused model, its limitations pose challenges in directly competing with models from global tech giants, such as Google and Meta. This has prompted speculation that Naver may seek strategic AI partnerships rather than relying solely on internal development.
"We are open to collaboration with global big tech firms and various external LLMs, and such discussions are ongoing," Choi said in February. "Lee's return to the board, much like Google founder Larry Page's return to the CEO position in 2011, signals a commitment to transformative change," an internet industry observer said, adding, "South Korea's tech firms have fallen significantly behind in AI, and Lee's return to the board reflects such sense of urgency."