Starting from natural language processing technology, advancing to become a leading company in Generative AI
With its roots in Korean Natural Language Analysis (KONAN), the Korean language information processing and search study group with researchers and professors from ETRI at the forefront, Konan Technology was founded in 1999 by club members including Kim Young-sum, the current CEO, Yang Seung-hyun, and Yoon Deok-ho as a multimedia information search system development company.
Back then, integrated portal sites were being created according to Internet business development. The signs of the times led Konan Technology members to believe that the information search area, which dealt with processing massive amounts of data and looking up relevant information, held great potential.
And so, Konan Technology set out on its challenge with the goals, “Let’s make actual progress in the full text search area through natural language analysis” and “Let’s move beyond searching only by title for multimedia such as videos, and let users search for the characters and even subtitles within the content.”
During the first year of its foundation, Konan Technology released Text Search CJK, the search engine that cross-searches multi-language content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese while also releasing TopicFinder, which finds the theme of the document after analyzing the text, and ImageFinder, a search engine dedicated to images. And only a year later, in 2000, the company released its VoiceXML engine, which is used for tasks such as ARS system establishment. Following this success, the company agreed on a strategic partnership with Knowledge Development Corporation, the operator of Empas, a search portal. Konan Technology developed the Empas XP Search Engine in 2001 to be applied to Empas’s portal search service, settling the commercialization of big data search and analysis technology.
Meanwhile, in the area of computer vision, Konan Technology initiated its business with ImageFinder in 1999 and released the Multimedia Information Retrieval System in 2001. In 2002, the company acquired a patent on image search technology based on MPEG7, and in 2003 released Konan DigitalArc, a multimedia content management system. After that, Konan Technology won the contract for “The News that Arrives 1 Hour Earlier, SBS Digital News Room,” Korea’s first digital broadcast conversion project, drawing the commercialization of computer vision technology by successfully completing the innovative task of converting the analog news production process into a digital format.
Since its early days, the company has laid the foundation for core AI technologies by encompassing text, voice, and video, leading the adoption of AI in business through over 3,000 projects for more than 2,500 clients.
With the rise of Generative AI, sparked by the emergence of ChatGPT in 2022, the company accelerated its development of large language models. Leveraging its unparalleled AI training data and computing infrastructure, it launched the Konan LLM in August 2023, which is known for its exceptional document productivity and high security. In June 2024, the company expanded the public sector adoption of large language models by signing a 4.1 billion KRW contract with Korea Southern Power Co., Ltd. to develop a generative AI model. Additionally, the company is channeling its accumulated AI expertise into the implementation of on-device AI optimized for edge devices.
Back then, integrated portal sites were being created according to Internet business development. The signs of the times led Konan Technology members to believe that the information search area, which dealt with processing massive amounts of data and looking up relevant information, held great potential.
And so, Konan Technology set out on its challenge with the goals, “Let’s make actual progress in the full text search area through natural language analysis” and “Let’s move beyond searching only by title for multimedia such as videos, and let users search for the characters and even subtitles within the content.”
During the first year of its foundation, Konan Technology released Text Search CJK, the search engine that cross-searches multi-language content in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese while also releasing TopicFinder, which finds the theme of the document after analyzing the text, and ImageFinder, a search engine dedicated to images. And only a year later, in 2000, the company released its VoiceXML engine, which is used for tasks such as ARS system establishment. Following this success, the company agreed on a strategic partnership with Knowledge Development Corporation, the operator of Empas, a search portal. Konan Technology developed the Empas XP Search Engine in 2001 to be applied to Empas’s portal search service, settling the commercialization of big data search and analysis technology.
Meanwhile, in the area of computer vision, Konan Technology initiated its business with ImageFinder in 1999 and released the Multimedia Information Retrieval System in 2001. In 2002, the company acquired a patent on image search technology based on MPEG7, and in 2003 released Konan DigitalArc, a multimedia content management system. After that, Konan Technology won the contract for “The News that Arrives 1 Hour Earlier, SBS Digital News Room,” Korea’s first digital broadcast conversion project, drawing the commercialization of computer vision technology by successfully completing the innovative task of converting the analog news production process into a digital format.
Since its early days, the company has laid the foundation for core AI technologies by encompassing text, voice, and video, leading the adoption of AI in business through over 3,000 projects for more than 2,500 clients.
With the rise of Generative AI, sparked by the emergence of ChatGPT in 2022, the company accelerated its development of large language models. Leveraging its unparalleled AI training data and computing infrastructure, it launched the Konan LLM in August 2023, which is known for its exceptional document productivity and high security. In June 2024, the company expanded the public sector adoption of large language models by signing a 4.1 billion KRW contract with Korea Southern Power Co., Ltd. to develop a generative AI model. Additionally, the company is channeling its accumulated AI expertise into the implementation of on-device AI optimized for edge devices.
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