Kim Su-yeon, head of EY's AI Center, left, and Lee Hwal-seok, chief technology officer of Upstage, pose for a photo at EY Han Young's office after signing an MOU to support sovereign AI-based AI transformation for domestic companies. [EY Han Young]
Kim Su-yeon, head of EY's AI Center, left, and Lee Hwal-seok, chief technology officer of Upstage, pose for a photo at EY Han Young's office after signing an MOU to support sovereign AI-based AI transformation for domestic companies. [EY Han Young]

EY Han Young, the Korean arm of global accounting and consulting firm EY, has joined forces with domestic AI specialist Upstage to pursue the sovereign AI-driven AI transformation market.

EY Han Young announced Tuesday that it signed an MOU with Upstage — developer of the large language model Solar — at its Yeouido headquarters in Seoul on Monday. The signing ceremony brought together key representatives from both companies, including Kim Su-yeon, head of EY's AI Center, and Lee Hwal-seok, Upstage's chief technology officer. The two sides discussed strategies for advancing sovereign AI-based transformation, expanding industry-specific applications and identifying joint customer opportunities.

The rapid spread of generative AI has pushed data security, regulatory compliance and technological sovereignty to the top of corporate agendas. Demand for sovereign AI — solutions that reduce reliance on foreign AI models and guard against data leakage — is growing sharply, particularly in security-sensitive sectors such as finance, the public sector and manufacturing. Against this backdrop, domestic AI companies with proprietary foundation models are drawing increased attention, and AI transformation built on homegrown technology is gaining momentum.

The partnership is designed to meet that market demand by combining Upstage's proprietary AI model capabilities with EY Han Young's industry expertise and AI transformation track record, with the goal of helping Korean companies adopt and scale sovereign AI. Upstage has built its domestic AI competitiveness around Solar, its in-house LLM, while EY Han Young has supported corporate AI transitions through its EY AI Center, executing AI strategy, process innovation, proof-of-concept, implementation and operations projects across a range of industries.

The two companies plan to collaborate on: sharing market and regulatory trends in sovereign AI; jointly developing Solar-based AI use cases by industry; exchanging AI adoption strategies and case studies from corporate transformation projects; supporting the adoption and spread of sovereign AI among Korean companies; and exploring joint customer development and partnership opportunities.

"By expanding our collaborative ecosystem with domestic AI technology companies, we are now able to offer customers a more diverse range of AI options," Kim said. "We will continue to strengthen our AI partnerships to accelerate customers' AI transformation and contribute to the growth of Korea's AI ecosystem."

Lee, Upstage's CTO, said the collaboration with EY Han Young "will help lay a practical foundation for spreading sovereign AI-based transformation by combining on-the-ground industry expertise with AI technology."

EY Han Young, which operates on a June fiscal year-end, posted sales of approximately 464.5 billion won ($336 million) and operating profit of approximately 9.1 billion won for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025.


an@heraldcorp.com