NAVER : Wattpad Cooperate with the University of Toronto on AI Research

NAVER-Wattpad Cooperate with the University of Toronto on AI Research

- NAVER-Wattpad-University of Toronto cooperate on NLP and HCI research to develop a next-generation content service platform
- The partnership will contribute to expanding NAVER's global AI R&D network as well as enhancing cooperation with Canada in AI

October 28, 2022

NAVER Corp.(KRX: 035420) and Wattpad will join hands with the University of Toronto, one of the world's top AI research institutes, to kick-start trilateral cooperation in R&D for a next-generation content service platform.

(Photo 1) Kim Nam-sun, CFO of NAVER (left), Alex Mihailidis, the Associate Vice-President of International Partnerships at the University of Toronto (right)

(Photo 2) Attendees of the Research Partnership Launch event from NAVER and the University of Toronto

On 28th, NAVER and the University of Toronto held a "Research Partnership Launch" event at the NAVER 1784 building to celebrate the start of joint research. Kim Nam-sun, CFO of NAVER; Jeong Seok-keun, Head of NAVER CLOVA; Ha Jung-woo, the head of AI Lab; Alex Mihailidis, Associate Vice-President of International Partnerships at the University of Toronto; Illan Kramer, the director of International Partnerships, attended the event.

Through this partnership, NAVER and Wattpad will invest 5.2 billion KRW (5 million CAD) over the next five years to conduct joint AI research with the University of Toronto in the fields of natural language processing(NLP) and human-computer interaction(HCI). And they plan to apply the research results to the Wattpad content service platform, providing even more innovative experiences to global users.

Specifically, the NLP research will focus on a content recommendation technology that distinguishes and analyzes similar contents, a natural language recognition technology to understand and summarize long text, and a model to measure user habits. In HCI research, they will delve into intuitive creative tools and conversational user interfaces using AI.

NAVER aims to further expand the company's global AI R&D ecosystem by cooperating with the University of Toronto, and at the same time, contribute to AI technology cooperation between Korea and Canada. NAVER has established joint AI research labs with Germany's Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Vietnam's HUST and PTIT, as well as Korea's Seoul National University. In addition, it has been actively engaging in research cooperation with leading universities from home and abroad to secure competitiveness in AI.

Alex Mihailidis, Associate Vice-President of International Partnerships at the University of Toronto, said, "The partnership with NAVER and Wattpad is a landmark corporate partnership. It allows us to pair the support of a Toronto-based business in Wattpad with the global ambitions of their corporate parent, NAVER, all while combining two of U of T's greatest strengths in computing: artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. This partnership is multi-disciplinary, multi-party, and multi-year. It is a great testament to the power of comprehensive expertise - something that U of T is uniquely positioned to deliver."

Brendan Cone, the head of engineering at Wattpad said, "We are very excited to partner closely with both U of T and NAVER in developing research that will help us provide more innovative experiences to our users. Between Wattpad's content platform, with millions of stories from diverse voices around the world, NAVER's impressive hyperscale AI technology, and U of T's comprehensive AI expertise, we hope to help our users find and create more of the content they love."

Ha Jung-woo, the head of AI Lab, said, "We are looking forward to the synergy between NAVER's hyperscale AI technology and infrastructure, in combination with the world's largest web novel platform by Wattpad, and Toronto University's world-class AI capabilities. Our goal is to develop a next-generation, user-interactive content platform powered by our AI technologies, allowing users to easily create quality content and discover interesting stories."