Upstage said on Wednesday it will expand its strategic cooperation with AMD to speed development and deployment of next-generation AI models and build Korea’s sovereign AI ecosystem.

Upstage CEO Kim Sung-hoon (김성훈) met AMD Chief Executive Lisa Su at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul on Wednesday and discussed various ways to cooperate on AI innovation in the region.

As part of the cooperation, Upstage plans to adopt AMD Instinct MI355 GPUs over the next year under a multi-stage roadmap and use them to develop its Solar large language model and document-processing AI solutions. As the lead company for the government-led Independent AI Foundation Model project, it also plans to actively use AMD GPUs to develop a national AI model.

The two companies plan to strengthen Korea’s AI ecosystem while contributing together to diversifying the country’s sovereign AI infrastructure.

Lisa Su said Upstage provides advanced language models and AI engines across enterprises, government and regulated industries and is at the forefront of AI innovation in Korea. She said the cooperation will combine AMD Instinct GPUs, open software ROCm and Upstage’s expertise to boost Korea’s sovereign AI capabilities and provide the performance, efficiency and open ecosystem needed to accelerate AI innovation.

Kim said cooperation with AMD, a key company in global AI infrastructure, is expected to serve as a key catalyst not only for upgrading the Solar model but also for developing a national AI model. He said Upstage will further raise the competitiveness of Korean AI by working with the latest global AI GPUs based on domestic infrastructure.