LG unveils upgraded hyperscale AI for future businesses

LG Group, South Korea’s fourth-biggest conglomerate, on Wednesday introduced an upgraded hyperscale AI to be used for its future growth engines such as new drugs and materials.

LG AI Research, the institute of the group’s holding company LG Corp., showcased Exaone 2.0, an improved version of a supergiant AI, which the conglomerate considered utilizing for its units this year. Its earlier edition was unveiled in December 2021.

Hyperscale AI is an AI model that can evolve to a human level of thinking by processing massive amounts of data.

“Exaone 2.0 differentiates itself from other AI models by providing professional, reliable answers to questions,” said Bae Kyunghoon, chief of LG AI Research. “We aim to create AI that companies can apply and use in the field.”

LG AI Research was established in December 2020 as LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo pinpointed machine intelligence as key to the group’s long-term growth.

QUADRUPLE THE LEARNING OF EXISTING MODEL

Exaone 2.0 quadruples the learning of existing AI as it has already learned 45 million professional documents including patents and papers, as well as 350 million images. The latest model is a multimodal AI that can combine texts, images and voices for deeper reasoning and better answers.

LG AI Research said Exaone 2.0, which can understand both Korean and English, is far more advanced than AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, which can only recognize text.

Exaone 2.0 reduces by 25% the time needed for inference, the process of using a trained neural network model to make a prediction, compared with the existing model. The hyperscale AI also cuts memory usage by 70%, helping reduce the cost of model establishment by 78%.

The research institute unveiled three platforms for Exaone 2.0: Universe, Discovery and Atelier.

Exaone Universe, an interactive AI platform for professionals, provides accurate answers based on evidence to questions in sectors that require expertise. Its information is inferred not only from pre-learned data but also from the latest specialized reports. The research center is preparing services using the platform for industries such as the bio, chemical, medical, financial and legal sectors.

The platform will be introduced to group employees in September.

Exaone Discovery is applied mainly to the development of new materials and drugs as it learns not only documents and patents but also image data such as chemical molecular structures and graphs.

The platform will be provided to group affiliates including LG Chem Ltd., the parent company of the world’s second-largest EV battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd., in the fourth quarter to support their R&D.

Exaone Atelier is an AI platform that understands and creates images. It provides customized phrases for ads when users input pictures of cosmetics or electronic devices. LG AI Research is considering commercializing the platform in the future through its services for external customers.

Write to Ik-Hwan Kim at lovepen@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.