April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] South Korean internet giant Naver plans to build a Silicon Valley research center specialized in artificial intelligence, according to industry sources on March 14.

Sources say Naver considered some big cities such as New York and Boston in the east but the final decision was Silicon Valley, the tech hub in the US and home to several tech giants such as Apple and Google.

Naver's self-driving vehicle

The company is said to be holding briefing sessions for Korean researchers and engineers working there to open the center as soon as possible.

Naver started pouring resources into AI development since later last year, operating related research facilities in Korea, China and Japan. Under the plans, the company launched a translation service Papago last year and has recently succeeded in test-driving its own autonomous driving vehicle.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)