Naver Proposes AI Factory Collaboration in France...Aiming to Establish a European AI Hub

Accompanying President Lee on State Visit to France
Proposes AI Factory Aimed at Europe
Collaboration on Industry-Specific AI and Content Also Discussed

NAVER is strengthening its artificial intelligence (AI) cooperation with French companies and institutions, taking the opportunity of President Lee Jaemyung's state visit to France.

According to NAVER on September 9, CEO Soo-Yeon Choi delivered opening remarks at the Korea-France Business Roundtable held on September 8 (local time), proposing, "We would like to build an AI factory that European companies and startups can utilize by combining France's stable energy infrastructure with NAVER's experience in the AI ecosystem."

Soo-Yeon Choi, CEO of Naver, is giving a presentation at the Lumiere Summit held on the 7th (local time) in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, southern France. Naver

Choi emphasized collaboration with French companies in various areas, including ▲global AI infrastructure, ▲industry-specific AI with data sovereignty and security, and ▲cultural content.

She also presented cases where NAVER's AI has been combined with industry expertise, such as the finance-specialized AI 'BOKI' (Bank of Korea) and the nuclear power-specialized AI 'Hy-NuRI' (Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power), and suggested supporting the development of industry-specialized AI in France.

In the content sector, Choi mentioned the business achievements of NAVER Webtoon, which has secured more than 2 million readers locally in France, and stated, "We wish to cooperate so that works co-created by creators from both countries can reach readers worldwide, leveraging the webtoon's global platform and technological capabilities such as the copyright protection AI 'ToonRadar.'"

Earlier, on the 7th, Choi participated as a speaker at the Lumiere Summit, an international film and audiovisual conference held in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, southern France. There, she introduced the 100 million dollar global content fund 'IP Adaptation Fund,' jointly established by NAVER and WEBTOON Entertainment to support the global growth of creators, and announced direct investment plans.

NAVER also signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) to combine AI technology with audiovisual cultural heritage archives on the occasion of the presidential visit to France. Both sides plan to explore ways to organize INA's audiovisual archives using NAVER's AI technology, thereby helping users to search for and utilize needed materials.

NAVER has positioned France as its AI research and investment hub in Europe. At NAVER Labs Europe, located in Grenoble, France, advanced research is being conducted on robotics AI and multimodal foundation models, and since its investment in Mistral AI in 2024, the two companies have been cooperating in the development of sovereign AI specialized in manufacturing.

Meanwhile, during the presidential trip to France, CEO Choi and NAVER Cloud CEO Kim Youwon met with CEOs from France's media, IT, energy, mobility, and financial sectors to discuss collaboration on AI infrastructure, industry-specialized AI, and content.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.