Seoul, South Korea – LG has marked a significant milestone in South Korea's AI landscape by unveiling Exaone Deep, the nation's inaugural reasoning artificial intelligence model, on March 18th. This development places LG in direct competition with global tech giants like OpenAI and DeepSeek, who are leading the charge in advanced AI reasoning capabilities.   

Exaone Deep distinguishes itself from traditional AI by employing a logical, step-by-step reasoning process, mimicking human thought. LG AI Research introduced the main model, Exaone Deep-32B, featuring 32 billion parameters. While DeepSeek's R1 boasts 671 billion parameters, LG's model demonstrates comparable performance, particularly in mathematics and science, showcasing a focus on efficiency.   

Benchmark tests reveal that Exaone Deep-32B excels in mathematical problem-solving. It achieved a score of 90 in the 2024 U.S. Mathematical Olympiad, surpassing DeepSeek-R1 (86.7) and Alibaba's QwQ-32B (86.7). In South Korea's 2025 CSAT math section, it scored 94.5, the highest among competing models. It also performed strongly on doctoral-level science problems. However, it lagged behind in coding and language skills, as reasoning AI models are primarily optimized for complex problem-solving.   

LG AI Research also introduced lighter versions, Exaone Deep-7.8B and on-device Exaone Deep-2.4B, which maintain high performance levels despite their smaller size. LG has made the models source code open-source, allowing developers to utilize and contribute to the technology.   

Despite the release of the source code, LG plans to keep the AI model for internal use, focusing on product development. Deploying it for public use would require substantial data centers and significant financial investment.

LG's advancements are part of a broader trend in South Korea, with companies like Naver and AI startups like Upstage also investing heavily in reasoning AI. Naver, for instance, has significantly reduced the parameters of its HyperCLOVA X model while enhancing its reasoning capabilities and reducing operating costs. Upstage has also recently begun full-scale development of reasoning AI. These developments underscore South Korea's commitment to staying at the forefront of the global AI revolution. 

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