Competition among South Korea’s defense, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud companies has ignited over a ₩24.2 billion project to integrate a defense-specialized large language model (LLM) into an actual command and control system. The landscape pits Hanwha Systems and LIG Nex1, both with strong defense credentials, as the prime contractors, while Naver Cloud and Samsung SDS compete on their AI model development and platform construction capabilities.
According to industry sources on the 20th, the proposal evaluation for the “Hyperscale AI-Based Command and Control System Technology” project, ordered by South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense, is currently underway, with the final contractor expected to be selected as early as the end of this month. Two consortiums are competing: one centered around LIG Nex1 with participation from Samsung SDS, SK Telecom, and LG AI Research, and another led by Hanwha Systems with Naver Cloud and others.
The objective of this project is to develop a defense-specialized hyperscale AI platform over 42 months, from September 2026 to February 2030, with a total investment of ₩24.2 billion. To realize Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), the project will establish a foundation capable of fusing, analyzing, searching, and processing multimodal battlefield information—including text, images, video, voice, sensor, and radar data. South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense plans to apply the platform developed through this project to the future South Korean Command and Control System (KCCS).
The project is broadly divided into two detailed tasks. The first is “Hyperscale AI Model Platform Construction Technology,” which involves developing a general-purpose defense LLM and a joint battlefield LLM. Based on these, the platform will implement real-time battlefield situational awareness and prediction, threat assessment, response plan generation, weapons system recommendation and allocation, and a user-customized common operational picture.
The second task is “Data Fabric and Knowledge Base Construction Technology.” This involves establishing the foundation to provide the data and knowledge necessary for training and inference of the defense general-purpose LLM and joint battlefield LLM developed in the first task. It entails developing a data fabric and knowledge base by collecting, refining, and standardizing battlefield data provided by entities such as South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff for use in AI training and inference.
In this contract competition, Hanwha Systems and LIG Nex1, as the respective prime contractors, will lead the overall project and its application and integration into the command and control system. Naver Cloud, Samsung SDS, and SK Telecom will compete by dividing roles in the AI model, data, and cloud platform domains. However, both consortiums plan to utilize LG AI Research’s Exaone model during the model platform construction process.
All companies participating in the consortiums have recently been strengthening their defense AI and cloud capabilities. An industry official stated, “Securing the experience of building and operating a defense-specialized model is a huge opportunity for companies, so I understand both consortiums have prepared with everything on the line. With major industry players participating en masse, the final contract award result will draw significant attention.”