LG opens AI research base in US

LG AI Research, an in-house research hub of South Korea‘s fourth-largest conglomerate, said Wednesday it has opened a new research center in the United States.

The center is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, near the University of Michigan. It is LG AI Research’s first overseas location.

The new facility will be led by Lee Hong-lak, chief scientist of AI and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. The center’s fundamental research will be led by Lee Moon-tae, associate professor of information science at University of Illinois, who joined LG AI Research earlier this year.

The launch of LG AI Research Center, Ann Arbor, is meant to strengthen its study on artificial intelligence technologies to allow its AI engine to think and judge on its own. Its research will mainly revolve around deep reinforcement learning, three-dimensional scene understanding and reasoning with a large-scale language model and bias & fairness related to AI ethics.

LG Corp, a holding company of LG Group, said in a statement that LG AI Research will strengthen open innovation by expanding industry-academic cooperation with universities and research institutes in North America, starting with the University of Michigan.

“Opening the North American Center is the first step for LG AI Research to enter the global scene beyond South Korea. We will expand our line of sight and stretch points of contact to universities and research institutes around the world to facilitate top-level research collaborations,” Lee said in a statement.

Earlier this year, LG AI Research signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Michigan College of Engineering in February and a Master Research Agreement in March to support joint research activities on advanced AI technologies.

“Through our partnership with LG AI, students and faculty will be able to trade expertise with our counterparts at one of the most innovative AI research centers in the world,” said Eric Michielssen, associate dean of research at the University of Michigan‘s College of Engineering.

The LG AI Research is also working with University of Toronto and Seoul National University to advance its AI technology.

The research unit was launched in December 2020, when then company announced its hyperscale language processing engine AI Exaone to be applied in manufacturing, research, education, finance, as well as fashion design. With the group, LG aims to nurture over 1,000 AI experts by 2023.

(consnow@heraldcorp.com)