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On June 5, 2025, NAVER hosted the networking event “Venturing NAVER’s Next Chapter” in Silicon Valley before announcing the establishment of “NAVER Ventures,” NAVER’s venture capital arm in North America. Key executives from NAVER, including CEO Choi Soo-yeon and President of Strategic Investments Kim Nam-sun, joined some 200 members of the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem as NAVER’s Chairman of the Board Lee Hae-jin presented the background on establishing NAVER Ventures and the plans to contribute to the ecosystem. Below are some of the excerpts from his talk.

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Korea is one of the very few countries in the world that has its own search engine. I was a new hire when Google first unveiled its search engine, and I thought back then that the information gap was going to lead to a gap in competitiveness – that is why I decided to develop our own Korean-language search engine. I had a greater sense of responsibility since, unlike how those with power in the past sometimes tried to monopolize information by seizing control of the language or burning books, Korea has a meaningful history of being the first in the world to invent metal type printing and creating Hunminjeongeum (manuscript that introduced the Korean alphabet Hangul), enabling all citizens to read.

At the time when most search results on Google were based on information in English, how did NAVER gather high-quality information in Korean? NAVER was the first in the world to discover the potential of User Generated Content (UGC), which led us to launch online community services such as Knowledge iN, Blog, and Café. When a user posts a question, another user would provide the answer based on their experience and knowledge – and information accumulated through the process would be connected to countless users via search. This is how Korean users were able to gain access to a wider variety of data, by using both NAVER and Google.

In the early days of search engines, many of them competed against each other using their own algorithms. However, with the advancement of technology and training on different search engines, they all began to have similar algorithms. Ultimately, data became the key differentiator in this competition. Similarly, I believe that AI will also progress in a similar manner. LLMs in each country are competing based on performance and algorithms these days. While this competition itself is meaningful, there will be a time when all LLMs reach a similar level – and when that time comes, data will once again become a critical element for differentiation.

As the importance of data grows, countries and companies across the world will begin investing in methods to store and utilize data on their own, rather than relying on external cloud services. AI will also continue to develop in a more detailed manner, becoming more and more specific towards each country, region, and area of expertise. NAVER has recently been working with NVIDIA and local companies in Thailand to develop Thai-based AI, and we are also working on developing new AI businesses in Saudi Arabia.

Diversity is going to shine only brighter in the era of AI. If only AI developed by the big tech giants and vertical AI models from different sectors could all be used harmoniously, I believe that the world will further advance for the better, in a much more interesting way than it is now – and NAVER aims to collaborate with a wider range of partners to make it happen. NAVER will pave the way for the era of AI, where the brightest talents and startups can all grow together by supporting them and connecting them with NAVER’s experiences ●