Agentic artificial intelligence startup 42Maru said Wednesday it has been named chair of the AI Transformation (AX) Diffusion Division under the "K-AI Partnership," Korea's grand alliance for artificial intelligence.
The K-AI Partnership is a private-sector cooperative body with broad participation from industry, academia and research institutes, aimed at successfully advancing the nation's AI transformation. The Korea Software Industry Association (KOSA) and Naver Cloud serve as co-chairs, with KOSA acting as the secretariat. Unlike existing academic or networking-focused councils, the partnership targets field-oriented task execution and tangible business creation.
The K-AI Partnership operates three divisions based on core functions: the AX Diffusion Division, the Full-Stack Export Division and the AI Ecosystem Division. The AX Diffusion Division, which 42Maru will lead, is tasked with removing barriers to AX adoption in public and industrial sectors and identifying and spreading success cases. It will uncover practical AX demand across industries such as manufacturing and logistics, match demand-side companies with supply-side companies, and disseminate performance cases. As the division is directly tied to tangible business creation in industrial settings, it is regarded as the core division with the highest number of companies seeking to participate.
"We will operate an effective demand-supply matching program rather than a formal one, ensuring that technology companies, domain companies and demand-side companies participating in the division can all produce tangible results," 42Maru CEO Kim Dong-hwan said. "We will lead the 'nation's AI transformation built together' so that Korea can establish itself as a global AI G3 power through AX G1."
