Financial AI firm joins LG AI Research consortium to advance K-EXAONE-based model
Financial AI company Webcash will join the government's "Dokpa-mo" project — short for Independent AI Foundation Model — a national initiative to develop a homegrown Korean AI model.
Webcash said Wednesday it is joining a consortium led by LG AI Research to develop and demonstrate AI agents specialized for financial operations as part of the project.
The Independent AI Foundation Model project is a national AI initiative driven by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency to secure Korea's independent AI model competitiveness and expand the domestic AI ecosystem. LG AI Research is advancing the project using its proprietary K-EXAONE model, working to refine the model and apply it to industrial settings.
Webcash is joining the project on the strength of domain expertise and financial AI technology it has built up in corporate cash management. The company will develop AI agents for corporate cash management and financial institution management information systems by linking its proprietary OPERIA platform with K-EXAONE. OPERIA is an intelligent relational database connector that automatically converts natural-language queries into SQL database queries to extract data, and is compatible with a range of large language models.
Building on OPERIA, Webcash is expanding its financial AI business — targeting financial institutions, public institutions and corporations — through products including a cash management agent, agent banking, AI MIS, fiscal AX and Gyeongni365.
"For AI to create value on the ground, understanding the work and using data accurately are essential," Webcash Chief Executive Kang Won-ju said. "We will contribute to expanding the domestic AI ecosystem by combining K-EXAONE with Webcash's financial AI technology."
Meanwhile, the Independent AI Foundation Model project, which launched last year, completed its second-stage evaluation in August and was narrowed down to three teams: SK Telecom, LG AI Research and Upstage. The government plans to wrap up a third evaluation early next year and select the final two teams.
The project carries a total budget of 4.7 trillion won ($3.55 billion), and its success is expected to hinge on whether the resulting model can compete with global counterparts in Korean-language processing, coding and reasoning — and whether businesses and public institutions actually adopt it.
igiza77@heraldcorp.com
