South Korea’s Naver launches generative AI services to compete with ChatGPT
South Korean internet giant Naver released its own generative artificial intelligence tool on Thursday, joining other companies in launching large language models to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Naver is dubbed the Google of South Korea, as the operator of the country’s top search engine. The company said its large language model HyperClova X can improve search as well as marketing and shopping experiences for advertisers and users.
HyperClova X powers a slate of new applications Naver announced Thursday including generative AI search service Cue: and chat app Clova X.
Naver said Clova X can increase work productivity by summarizing documents and running language translation. Users can also use its AI writing tool to draft emails and blog posts. Naver said Clova X will start beta testing Thursday.
“In terms of productivity, this will save 10% to 50% of time spent on those tasks,” Kim Yuwon, CEO of Naver Cloud, said in an exclusive interview with CNBC aired on Thursday.
An AI boom led by ChatGPT — the AI chatbot which has gone viral for its ability to generate humanlike responses to user prompts — has sparked clones around the world such as Microsoft’s Bard, Meta’s Llama, Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen and Baidu’s Ernie Bot.
“ChatGPT is a very challenging competitor. I think it’s an honest confession that we worked hard to keep up with the various abilities of ChatGPT,” said Kim.
“We tried to improve our ability to understand and respond to the intentions of the user. Korean proficiency is HyperClova’s competitive edge, but we tried to improve various language capabilities such as English to match the level of global competitors,” said Kim.
Naver’s Korea-listed shares jumped 6.03% Thursday after the announcement.
James Lim, senior research analyst at Dalton Investments, said that Naver is “still behind” other global players.
“There are really global top tier players and how do you get to a large number of parameters? First, you have to make that much of a investment and that’s where I think Naver might feel a little bit challenged because you’re going [against] the global leaders,” Lim told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.
Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeo said that it has invested a total of 1 trillion Korean won ($756.8 million) in the last three to four years toward the research and development of AI.
Developing an AI chip with Samsung
Kim said Naver’s AI investment is “reaching the level of full-fledged commercialization” and the firm needs a “low-cost and efficient semiconductor chip to improve our service quality.”
“We’ve done the large language model artificial intelligence training but to apply it to search and shopping, the cost for this service will increase tremendously. We came to the conclusion that it would be difficult to provide quality service to our users without reducing this cost,” said Kim.
Kim said that Naver is co-developing “low-cost and efficient” AI semiconductor chips with Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest dynamic random-access memory chipmaker. SK Hynix, another South Korean DRAM chipmaker, is the second-largest DRAM chipmaker globally.
“So this is not just about further commercializing our technology. We are doing this because we think we need such a low-cost and efficient semiconductor chip to improve our service quality,” said Kim.
Naver expects to further refine and develop its generative AI model, CEO Choi said earlier this week.
“We are excited about the potential value that a generative AI-powered search, marketing and shopping experience can create for our users and advertisers,” said Choi.
“Naver has already historically showed that they can utilize the AI technology to improve their services such as increasing the efficiency of their e-commerce recommendations, and I think that will accelerate with the adoption of their more newly developed AI technology,” said Lim of Dalton Investments.
Firefly’s CEO Jason Kim reacts during the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, U.S., August 7, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Last week’s liftoff also coincided with President Donald Trump‘s “space superiority” executive order, signed on Friday, that aims to create a permanent U.S. base on the moon.
Investors have also gained more clarity on the future of NASA following a whirlwind drama since Trump won the election.
Last week, the Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator more than a year after he was first nominated to the position.
Trump withdrew the nomination from the Elon Musk ally earlier this year amid a public fallout, but renominated Isaacman in November.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was tapped to temporarily run the space agency in the interim.
Google parent Alphabet on Monday announced it will acquire Intersect, a data center and energy infrastructure company, for $4.75 billion in cash in addition to the assumption of debt.
Alphabet said Intersect’s operations will remain independent, but that the acquisition will help bring more data center and generation capacity online faster.
In recent years, Google has been embroiled in a fierce competition with artificial intelligence rivals, namely OpenAI, which kick-started the generative AI boom with the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments to build out the data centers it needs to meet growing demand for its technology.
With its acquisition of Intersect, Google is looking to keep up.
“Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive US innovation and leadership,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said in a statement.
Google already had a minority stake in Intersect from a funding round that was announced last December. In a release at the time, Intersect said its strategic partnership with Google and TPG Rise Climate aimed to develop gigawatts of data center capacity across the U.S., including a $20 billion investment in renewable power infrastructure by the end of the decade.
Alphabet said Monday that Intersect will work closely with Google’s technical infrastructure team, including on the companies’ co-located power site and data center in Haskell County, Texas. Google previously announced a $40 billion investment in Texas through 2027, which includes new data center campuses in the state’s Haskell and Armstrong counties.
Intersect’s operating and in-development assets in California and its existing operating assets in Texas are not part of the acquisition, Alphabet said. Intersect’s existing investors including TPG Rise Climate, Climate Adaptive Infrastructure and Greenbelt Capital Partners will support those assets, and they will continue to operate as an independent company.
Alphabet’s acquisition of Intersect is expected to close in the first half of 2026, but it is still subject to customary closing conditions.
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