South Korea's internet giant Naver ventures further into Vietnam

August 24, 2020 | 12:00

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Naver, one of South Korea's biggest technology companies, on August 20 officially signed a cooperation agreement with Vietnam’s Posts Telecommunications Institute of Technology (PTIT) on investment, development, and training of AI in the country.

south koreas internet giant naver ventures further into vietnam

Dang Hoai Bac, deputy head of PTIT and Park Dong Jin from Naver signed the MoU

The cooperation is part of Naver’s Global AI R&D Belt strategy. Under the MoU, the two sides will cooperate in organised training courses on embedded, IoT, AI, big data, blockchain, data for students; and exchanges of students and teachers to help Vietnamese join the exchange programmes of Naver.

The cooperation will also include technology transfer and exchange, technology application, products and services which Naver has strong expertise; develop new curricula and international training programme; scholarship programmes for PTIT’s excellent students in AI; and joint research projects between Naver and PTIT; among others.

Addressing the signing ceremony, Dang Hoai Bac, deputy head of PTIT, expressed that he was deeply impressed by the Global AI R&D Belt strategy of Naver.

"PTIT’s research teams are eager to cooperate with Naver’s because the fields that the South Korean technology giant is interested in are also PTIT’s focuses, especially multimedia labs and machine learning labs."

Park Dong Jin, director of Naver in charge of the Asia-Pacific region said that, "The cooperation with PTIT has been in Naver’s plan for a long time as the institute is the leading IT training centre in Vietnam – and the young Vietnamese generation is very good at IT."

Naver announced the Global AI R&D Belt in 2019, building a network of AI labs in South Korea, Japan, France, and Southeast Asia, with Vietnam being a focus. Through this belt, Naver aims to connect lecturers, universities, startups, and labs to exchange expertise and cooperate in AI development.

In July 2020, Naver signed a cooperation agreement with Hanoi Technology University, opening for future cooperation with Vietnam in the Global AI R&D Belt.

Naver now has more than 3,500 staff globally. Naver is also the leading online search engine in South Korea, handling nearly 75 per cent of all web searches with 42 million enrolled users.

Naver’s market capitalisation in South Korea’s stock market is currently over $40 billion.