Naver plans to invest 100 billion won over the next five years to find new growth engines in the areas of hardware, including robotics, mobility, and smart homes.
At Naver’s developer conference DEVIEW 2015 held at COEX in Seoul on September 14, Song Chang-Hyun, CTO of Naver, revealed his company’s hardware project BLUE during his keynote speech. This project will be led by Naver’s R&D unit Naver Labs.
Naver Labs plans to promote joint research and development with major universities and companies in and outside Korea, aimed at expanding Naver’s software capabilities toward the areas of hardware such as robotics, mobility, and smart homes. At present, Naver Labs is seeking domestic and international partner universities and companies to carry out joint projects.
Naver claimed that UCLA professor Dennis Hong, one of the world’s leading designers of humanoid robots, already showed intention to join hands with Naver.
Naver CTO Song said, “We will continue technology innovation by promoting global industry-academy cooperation and pursuing reliable partnerships with small but strong companies.”
