AI and cloud company MegazoneCloud said on Thursday it was selected as the lead operator for the 2026 AI semiconductor overseas demonstration support project (server type) overseen by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA).

MegazoneCloud formed the KRFSAI (Korea Full Stack AI) consortium with FuriosaAI, NC AI, Upstage and Uracle. As the lead company, it will oversee the design, buildout and operation of an overseas server demonstration environment based on Korean AI semiconductors and lead the consortium's project overall.

The demonstration target is Aramco Digital, the digital unit of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil producer. The consortium plans to build FuriosaAI's Korean NPU (RNGD) servers in Aramco Digital's infrastructure environment. It also plans to implement and demonstrate a service that uses AI to parse 2D plant engineering drawings and automatically generate industrial 3D digital twin assets. The company said the goal is to sharply reduce work time and costs by automating, using AI, the current inefficient workflow that leads from 2D drawing reviews and manual 3D modeling to documentation.

Through the project, the KRFSAI consortium plans to demonstrate that Korean NPUs can effectively replace GPUs in closed-network environments in the energy and plant industries. The consortium plans to run the same AI model in GPU and NPU environments, measure and compare inference performance, power efficiency and stability, and submit the results as an official test report.

The project, promoted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and NIPA, will run its first phase from April to December 2026, with a second-year phase continuing through 2027 depending on results. MegazoneCloud CEO Dong-hoon Yeom (염동훈) said, "Based on a cooperation framework with our local subsidiary in Saudi Arabia and Aramco Digital, we have made thorough preparations to successfully lead this consortium." He added, "By directly demonstrating an integrated export model for Korean AI semiconductors and AI services in the Middle East energy market, we will contribute to securing a global reference for Korea's AI industry."