Naver plans to expand its research and development network in the North American region, particularly focusing on Silicon Valley, as part of its globalization efforts, according to officials.

The research team is seeking talent from across the globe who will be allowed to work in either Korea or the US, the South Korean internet giant said at 2021 Naver Search Colloquium which took place online on Friday.

Kim Jin-young, the newly appointed Head of Data Science and Director of US R&D at Naver Search CIC, said he plans to improve Naver’s search and recommendation services by applying the latest research cases in data science.

Making his first public appearance, Kim previously worked at Microsoft and Snap where he was in charging of assessing search and recommendation systems and user modeling.

“As Naver seeks to solidify itself as a global service, we hope to work with talented people at home and abroad,” Kim said at the event.

Kang In-ho, an executive officer at Naver Search CIC, said the use of AI search tools increased 24 percent last month compared to January thanks to “constant improvements on usability.”

“After improving the meaning-based understanding of other languages apart from Korean and experiencing a performance improvement, we believe that Naver’s technology and know-how will be appealing enough to the global market,” Kang said.

Naver also said its global artificial intelligence research belt, which was launched in 2019, has continued cooperation with researchers around the world, with plans to expand its four-way technology research network between South Korea, Japan, France and Vietnam.

A total of 24 AI technology-related presentations took place during the event in the six categories including Vision, Language AI, Learning to Rank, User Modeling, E-commerce and Platform.

Naver Search Colloquium is an annual academic event launched to share the works of Naver’s research team. Though it took place under the name AI Colloquium for the last three years, this year’s saw the title go back to its original, the company explained.

By Yim Hyun-su (hyunsu@heraldcorp.com)