Google Cloud focuses on Korea's enterprise generative AI market

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Business

Thu, November 30, 2023 | 00:03

Tech

Google Cloud focuses on Korea's enterprise generative AI market

Posted : 2023-11-14 16:00

Updated : 2023-11-15 10:46

Kang Hyoung-jun, managing director of Google Cloud Korea, speaks during a press conference at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas hotel in southern Seoul, Tuesday. Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul

By Baek Byung-yeul

Google Cloud is strengthening the enterprise generative AI market in Korea with its enterprise AI platform Vertex AI at a time when many enterprise customers are considering adapting the emerging technology to improve productivity and create new business models, according to the head of the U.S. tech giant’s Korean unit, Tuesday.

Google Cloud’s Vertex AI is designed to enable Korean businesses to use generative AI services independently, while storing customer data in Korean territory instead of overseas. This allows customers to use the service without worrying about data leakage and to comply with regulations more easily, according to Kang Hyoung-jun, managing director at Google Cloud Korea.

"Through Vertex AI, customers can start their data residency in Korea. Customers can control generative AI support for Vertex AI data stored in Korea,” Kang told reporters during a press conference held on the sidelines of the Google Cloud Summit Seoul 2023 event. "Customers often ask us if we are taking their data and using it for our own business. To address these concerns, Google Cloud is the first global cloud operator to open a residency in Korea.”

During the summit, Google Cloud announced that it will support customers using the generative AI features in Vertex AI to store their data in 10 global regions, including Seoul.

As demand for enterprise generative AI services increases worldwide, corporate demand for control over data storage location is also increasing, the company said. Especially as data sovereignty and regulatory requirements are strengthened, demand is expanding to ensure data residency so as to protect their own data and comply with regulations in each country.

The managing director said that Google Cloud's mission is to be a partner in the process of strengthening the capabilities of all businesses and achieving innovation in their businesses through digital transformation.

"This year, generative AI seems to have completely decorated the IT industry. Many IT companies say that it is difficult to have a business budget excluding generative AI, and they are actually devoted to this sector," he said.

At the summit, Google Cloud executives, as well as domestic partners and customer companies, shared how they are shortening the time to realize business value through generative AI. Google Cloud also introduced how its platform supports companies in content creation, information organization and integration, process automation and customer experience building.

NCSOFT, one of the partner companies, revealed that it developed its large language model (LLM) VARCO based on Google Cloud's data analytics and deep learning hardware Tensor Processing Unit (TPU).

"We launched our own LLM VARCO in August of this year, and VARCO helps to improve productivity in all areas. We collaborated with Google Cloud to launch it, and it was designed to work without errors when updating games regularly," said Lee Yeon-soo, head of game company NCSOFT's language AI lab NLP Center, adding that the language model was able to achieve faster learning speeds and improved economic efficiency through Google Cloud's TPU.

baekby@koreatimes.co.kr