SK Telecom, which ranked first in the second phase evaluation of proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) foundation models, is also running solo on the global AI open-source platform Hugging Face. It is the only company among the four evaluated in the second phase of proprietary AI foundation models to surpass 100,000 downloads.
According to Hugging Face on the 21st, “A.X K2,” the latest AI model developed by SK Telecom, recorded a cumulative 135,396 downloads in the last 30 days. Following exceeding 99,000 cumulative downloads a month after its release early this month, it maintains a monthly average cumulative 110,000 to 130,000 downloads due to steady demand.
This is a contrasting move to other proprietary AI foundation model companies whose download counts decreased a month after release. Upstage's “Solar Open2 250B,” which ranked second in the second phase evaluation, approached 25,000 downloads in its first month of release, but maintains 3,110 downloads based on the last 30 days.
Motiff Technologies' “Motiff 3,” which ranked fourth in the second phase evaluation, exceeded 5,500 downloads in its first month of release, but currently stands at 2,843 downloads, while LG AI Research's “K-EXAONE 2.0 750B,” which ranked third, exceeded 4,000 downloads, but is currently at the level of 2,009 downloads.
SK Telecom is maintaining an overwhelming advantage. SK Telecom proved its potential by jumping to first place this time after ranking third in both the presentation evaluation and the first phase evaluation of proprietary AI foundation models. This is interpreted as a result of continuously developing and upgrading its own language models, such as GPT-3, since the early 2020s.
Upstage led in the derived model metrics, which indicate separate utilization of disclosed models by other companies, developers, researchers, and others. Upstage Solar Open2 showed 18 derived models, including 3 fine-tuned models additionally trained for specific purposes and 15 quantized models that lightweight the model by lowering numerical precision while maintaining model performance as much as possible.
Subsequently, Motiff's Motiff 3 quantization derived models were counted as 12, SK Telecom A.X K2 as 4 derived models including fine-tuning and quantization, and LG AI Research K-EXAONE 2.0 as 3 quantization derived models, respectively.
An academic official said, “SK Telecom led in the expansion of proprietary AI foundation models, and Upstage led in application,” adding, “As these are achievements of the first and second place models, it is interpreted that the second phase evaluation of proprietary AI foundation models has public credibility.”
SK Telecom, Upstage, and LG AI Research, which passed the second phase evaluation, have currently entered model development and upgrading for the third phase evaluation of proprietary AI foundation models. The third phase models to be disclosed early next year are expected to be equipped with features similar to commercial AI models of big tech companies, with added features such as agentic capabilities and coding.
The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to allocate KRW4.6627 trillion in next year's budget (based on the government proposal) to support the development of proprietary AI foundation models, and full-scale development of frontier-level AI models in preparation for the AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) era.
