South Korea’s internet giant Naver Corp. has set up its second overseas outpost for artificial intelligence research in Hong Kong.

The operator of Korea’s largest search engine said Sunday the new AI lab was built in partnership with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and is situated on the university campus.

“Naver/Line-HKUST AI Laboratory would follow Naver Labs Europe in carrying out advanced research in future technologies and strengthening industry-academic collaborations,” said Han Seong-sook, chief executive of Naver. “We plan to further expand our global networks in AI research.”

Founded in 1991, HKUST is one of Asia’s leading research institutions with a global reputation in computer science and AI research.

Naver, together with its Japanese subsidiary Line, released an AI platform Clova and has been stepping up efforts to bolster its AI capabilities. It acquired Xerox Research Center Europe last year, which formed the basis of Naver Labs Europe, and has shared its AI research findings on premier academic conferences, including the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition and Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems.

By Lee Sun-hee and Kim Hyo-jin

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