Naver and NHN, once part of the same corporate group, are now competing in South Korea's defense artificial intelligence transformation (AX) market. Naver Cloud on June 15 unveiled its lightweight multimodal AI model, "HyperCLOVA X SEED 4B," designed for real-time analysis in edge environments including drones, unmanned systems and tactical vehicles. According to Naver Cloud, the company optimized an existing 8B-class large language model (LLM) through pruning and distillation techniques, cutting model size in half while improving efficiency in multimodal model production. Potential applications include drone and coastal surveillance object detection, satellite image change analysis, shooting range and barracks hazard detection, military equipment recognition and battlefield map analysis. Earlier this month, Naver Cloud established a dedicated defense AX organization under Chief Executive Officer Kim Yoo-won, led by Vice President Yoo Kyung-beom. At the InLEX Korea Defense Industry Exhibition held at the Daejeon Convention Center (DCC) on June 10, Naver Cloud presented how its sovereign AI capabilities could be applied to defense, with the centerpiece being its "HyperCLOVA X OMNI" multimodal model. "We will build an AI ecosystem deployable in real operational environments based on sovereign AI and defense-specialized vertical AI," Yoo said.