[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] "We have secured more than 100 million users worldwide, and 70 percent of them are users outside China. Users are increasing in South Korea as well, and many meaningful use cases are emerging. We will strengthen cooperation with Korean creators and partners."

As competition intensifies among major global players seeking an edge in the video AI model race, Chinese AI company Kling AI is accelerating its push into the South Korean market.

Zeng Yushen (쩡위선), head of global operations at Kling AI, met with a reporter at the KlingAI NEXTGEN 2026 university creative challenge event held recently in South Korea. "At the company level, South Korea is one of our very important markets," he said. "Videos of watching baseball, which became a trend in South Korea, led to a sharp increase in global users. South Korea is having a positive impact in terms of expanding the user base and profitability," he added.

Kling AI is a Chinese AI company. It has rolled out a series of AI models used to produce films, advertising and social media content, competing with Google, Runway AI and ByteDance in the video AI model market.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that it recently drew attention after being valued at about $18 billion and raising $2.8 billion in investment.

Despite tough competition, individual and corporate customers using Kling AI are growing quickly. As of June, its user base topped 100 million. More than 50,000 of them are corporate users, including advertisers, game companies and film production companies. The share of users outside China also stands at 70 percent.

Zeng pointed to quality and motion control, which accurately expresses movement, as two keywords for Kling AI's strengths.

"Advertisers and game companies have high demands for quality. The Kling 3.0 model supports 4K video, so it can meet these demands," he said. "Kling is also receiving good evaluations for capturing detailed movements and facial expressions. It can express video as close as possible to real people," he added. "Korean users make a lot of content related to cats, dogs and babies, and these videos are an area where motion control capabilities can show strength." He added, "Kling AI quality is at the level of film production. Kling O1 is a multimodal AI video generation model that integrates text, image and video prompts into a single workflow, enabling more accurate creation of people or scenes."

He also highlighted that an advertisement using Kling won an award at Cannes Lions, known as the "Oscars of the advertising industry."

Videos including Lorem Ipsum, produced by Argentina's Purga Studio, and The Last Real Man project, produced by German advertising studio Lipstick, received awards. He explained that most of Lorem Ipsum was produced with Kling.

Kling AI began full-scale cooperation with South Korean content after attending a startup-related discussion forum held at the Busan International Film Festival last year. It is focusing on supporting creators, film studios and producers so they can use Kling.

This year, it officially held the KlingAI NEXTGEN 2026 university creative challenge. The company said about 500 people applied to participate, and a total of 184 works were submitted from 60 universities nationwide.

Zeng said, "This year as well, we are focusing on expanding creators and partners in the South Korean market through events and advertising, including attending the Busan International Film Festival. We will expand corporate customers that can use the Kling AI API in the enterprise market."

It is also strengthening cooperation with professional production companies. The company said South Korean video production firms such as Studio Meta K and Mateo AI Studio are using Kling. Studio Meta K has applied generative AI to various broadcast programs including KBS' History Special, MBC's New Director Kim Yeon-kyung, ENA's Geumjjokgateun Nae Star, and MBN's Dolsinggeuljeu 7, and is actively using Kling in practical production work.

Mateo AI Studio jointly produced the AI feature film Raphael with MBC C&I using Kling. Raphael, which tells the story of an escaped robot embarking on a mental journey, is a theatrical feature film made 100 percent with AI by a seven-member team. It is also scheduled for release in South Korean theaters.