Krafton will conduct joint research with Seoul National University for the next three years on world models to be used in games and robotics.

Krafton said on Wednesday it held a launch event for the joint research with the AI major in the graduate interdisciplinary program at Seoul National University and disclosed research topics and participating researchers.

A world model is a technology in which AI understands the current situation and predicts and simulates how the surrounding environment will change depending on specific actions. The two sides will study prediction and decision-making technologies commonly needed in virtual environments in games and real-world environments in which robots operate.

The joint research will focus on three detailed tasks carried out by SNU faculty and on operating a joint research center.

The partners will first study technology that keeps the shape of space and objects consistent when AI generates long videos. They will also cover technology that naturally connects movements of people and surrounding objects using in-game motion data.

They will also verify whether AI uses spatial information, such as corridor width and distance to objects, as grounds for real-world judgment using virtual scenes. They also plan to build benchmarks to evaluate the results of each task.

Through the joint research center, the two sides will run events to share results and student internships, and will identify new research tasks. Krafton plans to use the work to broaden exchanges with AI researchers and to move to secure related talent.

The cooperation is a follow-up measure to an industry-academia cooperation agreement Krafton and SNU signed in November last year. The agreement included joint research, personnel exchanges and student internships, and efforts to install a corporate research center within the graduate school. The two sides have also carried out joint research through the Ministry of Science and ICT's AI Star Fellowship Support program.

Kangwook Lee (이강욱), Krafton’s chief AI officer, said, "We will apply the simulation and virtual-world construction capabilities accumulated through games to world model research, and expand research outcomes into games and robotics."

Yu Kang (강유), a professor at Seoul National University, said, "We will jointly 추진 world model research that spans games and robots and will also expand opportunities for students to participate in research."

Krafton established a robotics research unit in the United States last year called Ludo Robotics, and in February it also established a South Korean unit.