ArbaLabs, which develops black boxes for AI, said on Thursday it will use South Korea as a strategic base and step up global expansion, citing its second-place finish in the 2025 K-Startup Grand Challenge (KSGC) hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

The company said its black-box technology supports verification of whether AI decision-making was carried out as intended in real-world settings and whether the results were later altered. Existing AI systems output only results and do not provide clear evidence of how they were generated, it said. ArbaLabs' solution, ArbaEdge, creates an immutable security log that records which model produced each result. This provides a basis for trusting and verifying AI behavior.

ArbaLabs has designated South Korea as a key long-term growth market and plans to proceed with hardware production and assembly by leveraging a local base that is competitive in the semiconductor and electronics industries. To this end, it is working with South Korean companies and institutions across industries including smart infrastructure, robotics and next-generation mobility on pilot projects to validate the technology in real-world environments. Beyond a simple market entry, it plans to support the safe use of AI and build a strategic technology hub in South Korea to ensure AI transparency and accountability.

ArbaLabs CEO Ashley Reeves (애슐리 리브스) said, "Korea is the optimal strategic base that has both an advanced manufacturing ecosystem and a proactive AI regulatory environment." She added, "Centered on our Korean unit, we will build a transparent and responsible AI ecosystem and present a new global trust standard for autonomous systems."