42Maru builds defense-specialized GenAI platform

42Maru, South Korea's generative AI and language AI startup said on Friday that it was selected as the lead organization for the Defense Technology Information Generative AI System to Improve Core Weapon System Operational Rates development project.

This project is a part of the 2024 Future Defense Bridge Technology Development Project commissioned by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.

42Maru has formed a consortium with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), which operates the Defense CBM+ Center; the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), which runs the military logistics integrated information system; and Datamaker, a private AI data-building company.

Together, they will carry out the Republic of Korea Army Logistics Command project, with a total project budget of 4.2 billion won ($3.2 million), over the next three years.

The goal of this project is to support the efficient operation of intelligent logistics support systems by applying custom-tailored AI technologies to the defense sector in response to defense and logistics innovation and the rapid changes in social structures.

Through this project, 42Maru will develop a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and Question-Answer (QA) system based on Large Language Models (LLMs) for military logistics integrated information system data, related laws, regulations and guidelines.

The company also plans to build a defense-specialized generative AI platform in collaboration with KISTI. Furthermore, it intends to apply the latest generative AI models to the entire lifecycle of logistics.

Future plans include expanding the project's research and development outcomes to all branches of the military and introducing generative AI for predictive maintenance and report generation to improve military processes.

42Maru mitigates the hallucination phenomenon, a major drawback of large language models, by using its RAG42 (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and MRC42 (Machine Reading Comprehension) technologies.

The company is also developing and providing LLM42, a lightweight model specialized for specialized industrial sectors.

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com