ReportKOCCA – Korea Creative Content Agency
Interview with Keunkyo Kim, Head of Global Business at NC AI
1 Jan 20257 pages~16 min full read
NC AI is leveraging 14 years of MMORPG-based reinforcement learning and real-time processing expertise to expand from gaming into industrial sectors, including manufacturing, robotics, smart cities, and defense.
The company is developing a dual-track AI strategy that balances a 200-billion-parameter large language model with lightweight, edge-optimized multimodal diffusion models for field efficiency.
NC AI’s proprietary VARCO 3D engine enables the generation of physics-based 3D environments from text or images, while the open-source VARCO Vision 2.0 achieved over 10,000 downloads within ten days of release.
As a leader in Korea’s Independent Foundation Model project, NC AI is the first Korean entity to deploy its proprietary LLM on AWS and currently heads a 54-organization consortium to drive industry-specific AI adoption.
The firm is prioritizing AI safety and trustworthiness through its proprietary 'Safeguard' filter, which is already integrated into the NCER chatbot.
NC AI is promoting a 'creator economy' model by providing tools for 3D generation, voice, and animation to integrate industry, government, and academic talent into a unified AI ecosystem.
The interview articulates NC AI’s transformation from a game‑focused research lab into a national industrial‑AI hub, positioning Korea as a global center for “K‑AI.” It outlines the company’s ambition to leverage fourteen years of game‑AI expertise to drive cross‑industry innovation, emphasizing that AI has moved from a supporting role to a core driver of gameplay, content creation, and broader economic competitiveness.
NC AI, a subsidiary of NCSoft, has built a proprietary large‑language model called VARCO and the VARCO 3D engine, which can generate near‑realistic, physics‑based 3D environments from text or images. The firm was selected as one of five leaders in Korea’s Independent Foundation Model project and became the first Korean entity to deploy its LLM on AWS. An open‑source release of VARCO Vision 2.0 attracted over 10 000 downloads within ten days, reflecting a strategic push for global adoption and a vibrant developer ecosystem.
The company’s real‑time processing and reinforcement‑learning capabilities, honed in massive MMORPG settings, are now applied to digital twins for manufacturing, robotics, smart‑city, and defense sectors. NC AI pursues a dual‑track model—developing a 200‑billion‑parameter LLM while simultaneously creating lightweight, edge‑optimized multimodal diffusion models—to balance scale with field efficiency. Its proprietary safety filter, Safeguard, has been integrated into NCSoft’s NCER chatbot, underscoring a commitment to AI trustworthiness and standards collaboration.
Looking ahead, NC AI leads a consortium of 54 organizations to produce industry‑specific AI that validates in real‑world environments, aiming for Korean AI sovereignty and global leadership. By enabling user‑generated content through VARCO 3D, Voice, and animation tools, the firm promotes a “everyone can be a creator” ethos, encouraging young talent to contribute to a vertically integrated AI ecosystem that links industry, government, and academia and positions Korea as a powerhouse in the international AI landscape.
