Naver-invested Nota AI named global leader in AI optimization

South Korea’s Nota AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) optimization model company with investment from Naver D2 Startup Factory (D2SF), an investment entity of the country’s leading web portal Naver, has been named a global leader in AI ​​optimization by the New York-based global market research company CB Insights.

Naver on Friday said Nota AI was the country’s lone company ranked in the category.

AI optimization is basic technology for maintaining efficiency and high performance by optimizing models and making them lightweight based on hardware characteristics and specifications.

Given surging operating costs due to more companies adopting AI, technology for AI lightweighting and optimization is attracting massive interest for its cost-cutting effects.

Nota AI developed such know-how for use in NetsPresso, a platform for optimizing hardware-aware AI models, and recently rolled out Stable Diffusion, a hyperscale AI model for producing images.

“Based on our close partnerships with global AI semiconductor companies such as Nvidia and Arm, we will grow into a company contributing to making AI universal on the world market,” Nota AI CEO Chae Myung-su said.

His company has attracted 27.2 billion won ($20 million) in investment from Samsung, LG, Kakao and Naver D2SF.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at deep@hankyung.com