South Korean internet company Naver and Saudi Arabia's oil giant Aramco's digital technology subsidiary signed an agreement to jointly enter the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) market, focusing on cloud, robotics, and digital avatars to develop smart buildings and cities.
Yonhap News Agency has reported upon inking a memorandum of understanding (MOU), Naver and Aramco Digital have plans to establish an optimized "sovereign" cloud and a super app in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East region. This joint initiative aims to develop AI based on a large-scale Arabic language model (LLM).
Naver describes "sovereign AI" as utilizing proprietary LLM technology to create AI models tailored to local culture and language, serving as the foundation for various solutions. Apart from tech giants in the US and China, Naver is uniquely positioned to provide the necessary technology, infrastructure, and solutions to operate high-cost LLMs efficiently.
Leveraging cloud, robotics, and digital avatars, Naver and Aramco Digital plan to develop smart buildings and smart cities in the region.
Naver views Aramco Digital as the ideal partner to implement TEAM NAVER's advanced cloud, AI, and digital avatar technologies in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. They anticipate that the digital innovation examples established by Aramco Digital will enable Naver's technology to expand into other regions.
Credit: Naver
