Look, let's be honest—KRAFTON has officially dived into a joint research project with Seoul National University, tackling world models across both gaming and robotics. Both sides hosted a launch ceremony right at Seoul National University, pulling back the curtain on their core research topics and participating researchers. Director Lee Kang-wook, KRAFTON's CAIO, alongside Professor Kang Yu from Seoul National University, turned up to hash out specific research tasks and future collaboration strategies.

For the uninitiated, a world model is the kind of tech where artificial intelligence sizes up the current situation and predicts or simulates how the surrounding environment will physically shift based on certain actions. Through this partnership, KRAFTON plans to team up with Seoul National University to investigate the prediction and judgement tech required across both virtual in-game environments and the messy realities of robotic activities. The goal here is to beef up research foundations in robotics while levelling up world model studies that make sense of both virtual and real-world spaces.

This joint venture is slated to run for the next three years, rolling out three distinct research projects led by Seoul National University faculty alongside a joint research centre management task. The research team will delve into world model tech that ensures space and object appearances stay consistent when AI spits out lengthy video sequences. On top of that, they are tackling tech that uses in-game motion data to naturally stitch together the movements of humans and surrounding objects. They will also lean on virtual scenes to check whether AI uses spatial data—like corridor widths or distances to objects—to back up its decisions, all while building benchmarks to properly score each project's output.

Through the joint research centre, both parties plan to push forward with performance exchange meetings, student internships, and unearthing fresh collaborative research tasks. KRAFTON's master plan here is to widen its network with AI researchers and lock down top-tier talent. This launch ceremony builds directly on the industry-academia cooperation agreement signed back in November by KRAFTON and the Seoul National University AI major. That agreement laid out plans for joint research, personnel exchanges, student internships, and setting up an enterprise research centre within the graduate school. Both camps have also kept the joint research fires burning via the Ministry of Science and ICT's 'AI Star Fellowship Support' initiative.

Lee Kang-wook, KRAFTON's CAIO, noted that KRAFTON's simulation and virtual world-building chops, forged through years of gaming, serve as a vital bedrock for world model research. Lee Kang-wook added that they intend to channel these joint research fruits with Seoul National University into crafting more vivid gaming experiences and pushing further into realms like robotics. Meanwhile, Professor Kang Yu of the Seoul National University AI major shared that it feels quite meaningful to kick off world model research spanning gaming and robotics alongside KRAFTON, expressing hope for solid results and broader research participation opportunities for students.

On a related note, KRAFTON keeps pushing ahead with medium-to-long-term tech research such as physical AI, all backed by the AI research muscle built up through gaming. Following the establishment of its robotics research subsidiary Ludo Robotics in the US last year, KRAFTON went ahead and set up a domestic Korean branch this February.