[Edaily Reporter Kim Hyun-ah] #NC subsidiary NC AI is partnering with MBC to embark on an Artificial Intelligence Transformation (AX) initiative covering the entire broadcast content production process. The plan is to simultaneously enhance production efficiency and content competitiveness by automating post-production processes—such as editing, multilingual dubbing, and audio description—using AI technology that understands the context of video content.

NC AI announced on the 16th that it has formed a consortium with MBC, NHN Cloud, and DataMaker and has been selected for the media sector project under the “AX One-Stop Voucher Program” promoted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA).

The AX One-Stop Voucher Project is a government initiative that provides integrated support for AI solutions, cloud services, and data utilization, focusing on the digital transformation needs of client companies. Its goal is to support practical innovation in the industry by linking processes from planning to data construction, AI development, and infrastructure operation, going beyond the simple adoption of technology.

This project was launched to address the structural challenges facing the broadcasting industry, which is struggling with a slump in the advertising market and rising production costs despite growing global demand for K-content. In particular, the post-production sector—including editing, subtitling, dubbing, and audio description—is considered a major bottleneck where costs and time are concentrated due to the high proportion of manual labor.

The consortium plans to establish a "media ontology" system that enables AI to comprehensively understand the relationships between characters, speech, emotions, and scenes within broadcast videos. Based on this, it will also develop a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform to support the entire content production process.

NC AI is responsible for developing the core technologies. It will handle the design of the ontology engine, the refinement of AI models, and the development of the SaaS platform and APIs, and plans to apply its proprietary media-specialized AI brand, "VARCO," to the broadcast production environment.

An ontology is a knowledge system that structures the semantic relationships between individual data points to help computers understand context. The media ontology to be built through this project will connect characters’ actions, dialogue, emotional changes, and information about locations and situations, enabling AI to grasp the flow and meaning of video content in a manner similar to humans.

The ultimate goal of the project is to develop three types of media SaaS services: ▲ context-aware AI editing, ▲ AI multilingual dubbing, and ▲ AI audio description for the visually impaired. The plan is to significantly reduce the time and cost required for content production and create an environment where production teams can focus on creative tasks such as planning and directing.

In particular, AI audio description technology is expected to contribute to revitalizing media services for people with disabilities, an area where expansion has been difficult due to cost burdens. The industry views this project as a model that simultaneously pursues both production efficiency and the public good of expanding content accessibility.

Lee Yeon-soo, CEO of NC AI, stated, “This project simultaneously drives production innovation through AI, global business expansion, and improved media accessibility.” He added, “Based on media ontology and multimodal AI technology, we will lead the AX (Artificial Experience) of the domestic broadcasting industry and contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of K-content.”