Korea Central News Net

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  • LG Unveils Korea’s First Hybrid AI Model ‘EXAONE 4.0’—Outperforming Global Giants

    LG AI Research has introduced “EXAONE 4.0,” Korea’s first hybrid AI model, positioning itself alongside top players like Anthropic and Alibaba in the global AI race. The announcement was made on July 15, ahead of the company’s upcoming “LG AI Talk Concert 2025” to be held on July 22 at LG Science Park in Seoul.

    EXAONE 4.0 uniquely combines two core AI capabilities: natural language understanding and generation powered by a large language model, and autonomous reasoning for problem-solving. It can not only respond quickly to knowledge-based queries but also hypothesize, verify, and explain complex ideas—essentially thinking like a human expert.

    LG’s new model achieved best-in-class results in multiple benchmark tests. It scored 92.3 and 81.8 in MMLU-Redux and MMLU-Pro (measuring knowledge and reasoning), outperformed rivals in coding (66.7 in LiveCodeBench v6), science (75.4 in GPQA-Diamond), and mathematics (85.3 in AIME 2025)—surpassing open models from Google, Meta, Microsoft, Alibaba, and Mistral.

    To ensure broad accessibility, LG has released EXAONE 4.0 as an open-weight model on Hugging Face, allowing the global research community to experiment and build on it.

    A Model with Real Expertise—Not Just Language Fluency

    EXAONE 4.0 comes in two variants: a 32-billion-parameter expert model and a 1.2-billion-parameter on-device model. The expert version passed six Korean national licensing exams, including for medical doctors and appraisers, demonstrating its practical depth and domain knowledge.

    The on-device model is optimized for edge devices like smartphones, home appliances, and vehicles. Despite its compact size, it surpasses OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini in key areas such as math, coding, and science, making it a strong contender in the emerging on-device AI market.

    EXAONE Now Available via API

    LG has partnered with Friendly AI to launch a commercial API for EXAONE 4.0. Developers and businesses can now access the model without high-end GPUs, making it easier to integrate powerful AI into everyday services.

    Earlier this year, LG Corp. CEO Koo Kwang-mo emphasized the company’s vision: “By making advanced technologies like AI accessible in daily life, we aim to create a new lifestyle where people can spend their time on more joyful and meaningful pursuits.”

    With EXAONE 4.0, LG not only delivers a technological leap but also signals its determination to lead in the global AI ecosystem—on devices, in research labs, and across industries.

  • KG Inicis launches customizable biometric authentication solution for the shopping mall digital payment service

    KG Inicis, a leading company in South Korea’s electronic payment market, announced on the 18th the launch of a biometric authentication feature for its custom payment solution designed for merchant-specific digital peyment systems.

    The newly introduced biometric authentication feature allows users to authenticate payments with facial and fingerprint recognition instead of a password. This not only improves payment speed and convenience but also enhances the overall security level of the service by implementing a hard-to-hack and unreplicable authentication method.

    This function is embedded in the premium easy payment solution “W Pay – Load My Card” (hereinafter referred to as “My Card”), which was launched in February. It is the first and only domestic solution equipped with both easy card registration and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, significantly shortening the card registration process.

    KG Inicis explained that in light of recent data breach incidents across the industry, the company developed this feature to provide a safer payment method using biometric authentication, which is difficult to replicate or steal.

    The biometric authentication rollout is part of the ongoing advancement of “My Card.” KG Inicis stated that the company plans to continue strengthening the security and convenience of its solution. According to the company, merchants that have adopted “My Card” experienced a 34% reduction in card registration time and a 20% increase in same-day card registration rate, reflecting an improvement in usability.

    KG Inicis emphasized that facial and fingerprint recognition are widely adopted and fast authentication methods, which significantly enhance the user experience. The company aims to offer a differentiated payment experience by upgrading the solution to ensure that all customers can make secure and convenient payments in various environments.

    Meanwhile, “W Pay” is a customizable, easy payment solution tailored to merchant needs in terms of design and payment methods. It supports fast and secure payments for over 200 online merchants, with a cumulative user base exceeding 18 million. Merchants who build their easy payment services with “W Pay” can also adopt the premium features of “My Card.”

  • COOCON Emerges as Core Infrastructure in Stablecoin Ecosystem

    • Accelerating entry into the next-generation payments market with 20 years of accumulated API infrastructure
    • Preparing stablecoin-based simple payment services linked to South Korea’s largest offline merchants and ATMs

    Business data platform company COOCON (CEO Jong-Hyun Kim) announced on the 7th that it will actively establish itself as core infrastructure in the stablecoin ecosystem, in preparation for the implementation of South Korea’s second-phase digital asset legislation in 2025.

    COOCON is a key infrastructure provider offering firm banking and authentication APIs to major fintech services such as Toss, KakaoPay, Upbit, and Bithumb, and maintains API connections with over 500 financial institutions. As transaction volume increases among these services, COOCON anticipates structural benefits from the expansion of the stablecoin market.

    COOCON expects the API infrastructure it has built over the years to become even more valuable as stablecoin adoption spreads. The company plans to strengthen its role as a trusted technology partner in the stablecoin market by leveraging its verified infrastructure, which can handle inter-platform data integration and surging transaction volumes, along with its stable revenue model.

    In August, COOCON plans to launch a global simple payment service in partnership with UnionPay, WeChat Pay, LiquidPay, and Alipay. This will allow overseas tourists to use their existing payment services seamlessly at domestic merchants. COOCON also plans to expand its global payments and settlement services through early entry into major Asian fintech hubs, including Singapore, Japan, and Indonesia.

    Once stablecoin adoption becomes widespread, COOCON aims to play a central role in the stablecoin ecosystem by offering QR-based real-time payment and withdrawal services through its infrastructure, which includes over 2 million offline merchants and 40,000 ATMs in Korea.

    he company is currently discussing strategic partnerships with major domestic and international stablecoin operators in the areas of payment and distribution. It is rapidly pushing new business initiatives through its company-wide Stablecoin Committee.

    In the second half of this year, COOCON plans to secure new growth engines by focusing on the expansion of its data business, overseas payment sectors, local currency markets, and new technology-based business models such as AI and stablecoins.

    “2025 will be a turning point when the institutionalization of stablecoins for payment begins in earnest,” said Jong-Hyun Kim, CEO of COOCON. “With the global stablecoin market expected to grow to $2 trillion by 2028, COOCON will play a pivotal role as the representative infrastructure company to benefit from this growth.”

    Meanwhile, following last year’s participation, COOCON plans to attend the Singapore Fintech Festival again in November to explore strategic alliances in the payment and stablecoin sectors with various global partners, further expanding its international network. Through this, the company aims to solidify its presence in Asia’s fintech hub markets and become a key infrastructure provider in the global simple payment and stablecoin ecosystems.

    Founded in 2006, COOCON has spent over 15 years collecting, connecting, and controlling business data. Through its information API store, COOCON.NET, it provides business-critical data in API format.