Upstage moves to acquire Daum in strategic AI push

Korean artificial intelligence (AI) startup Upstage has taken formal steps to acquire Daum, the portal owned by Kakao, in a move that could reshape the country’s AI and digital services landscape. On Thursday, both Kakao and Upstage approved the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a share-swap transaction at their respective board meetings. Under the agreement, Kakao will transfer its AXZ shares to Upstage while acquiring a stake in Upstage. AXZ, which operates Daum, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kakao. Upstage plans to deploy its proprietary large language model, Solar, across Daum’s platforms. Services such as Tistory and Daum Cafe hold decades of user data that can be anonymized and used to train AI systems. The acquisition is expected to strengthen Upstage’s position in the government-led national AI foundation model project, where the use of proprietary AI models is a key evaluation criterion. Upstage, along with LG AI Research and SK Telecom, has already advanced past the project’s first-round selection. The company plans to collaborate with consortium membWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times