Motif-led consortium joins national AI foundation model project

The Ministry of Science and ICT said Friday it has selected a consortium led by Motif Technologies as an additional participant in the government-led project to develop homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) foundation models. The newly admitted team — which includes the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology — will join the three previously shortlisted consortia led by SK Telecom, LG AI Research and Upstage. Last month, the ministry advanced those three teams to the second round after eliminating two others led by Naver Cloud and NC AI in the first-stage evaluation. The initial assessment examined benchmark performance, expert review and user experience, with technological originality serving as a key requirement. The ministry said Naver Cloud failed to meet the criteria for developing a fully independent model architecture trained from scratch, while NC AI also did not advance. Upon announcing the results, the government said it would recruit one additional consortium to fill the fourth slot, as only three teams had qualified despite the original plan to advance four. An