Naver, South Korea’s leading tech company, announced on September 12 that it has begun collaborating with Saudi Arabia in the AI sector. The company participated in the Global AI Summit and signed a MOU with major government institutions.

The Global AI Summit 2024 (GAIN 2024) is a global AI conference hosted by the Saudi Data & Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA). It was organized to foster international cooperation and drive AI innovation across industries, aligning with Saudi Arabia’s ‘Vision 2030’.

From the 10th, the 3rd GAIN 2024 event took place over three days, with attendees including Naver’s GIO Hae-jin Lee, CEO Soo-yeon Choi, Sun-joo Chae, Head of External/ESG Policy, Yoo-won Kim, CEO of Naver Cloud, and Sang-ok Seok, CEO of Naver Labs. Notably, Yoo-won Kim, CEO of Naver Cloud, emphasized the growing importance of AI sovereignty during the keynote at GAIN 2024 and expressed Naver’s commitment to contributing to Saudi Arabia’s efforts in opening a new chapter in the AI era, leveraging its unique AI technological capabilities and experience.

During their visit to Saudi Arabia, Naver met with key government officials, including Majed Al-Hogail, Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing; Abdullah Alswaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology; Majid AlKassabi, Minister of Commerce; and Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi, President of the Saudi Data & Artificial Intelligence Authority.

Prior to this, in May, SDAIA President Abdullah Alghamdi had visited Naver’s 1784 headquarters, where he experienced various future technologies firsthand and discussed potential technological collaborations.

With this MOU, Naver and Saudi Arabia’s SDAIA will broadly collaborate in the fields of AI, cloud, data centers, and robotics. Specifically, Naver, Naver Cloud, and Naver Labs plan to work with SDAIA on ▲ data center-related solutions and services ▲ cloud solutions based on the data ▲ the development of Arabic-based large language models (LLM) and services, and ▲ research and development of intelligent robots and application services. Following its work in digital twins, Naver aims to continue its role as a key technology partner for Saudi Arabia in the AI field.