[Edaily Reporter Shin Yeong-bin ] “South Korea is one of the most dynamic and fiercely competitive artificial intelligence (AI) markets in the world. If we succeed in South Korea, we will be able to expand that success across the Asia-Pacific region.”

Frank O’Dowd, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of Cohere, identified South Korea as a key market for expanding its Asia-Pacific operations during a press conference held on the 5th at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul. Cohere is establishing a South Korean subsidiary and expanding its technical and sales teams, while also seeking to secure additional domestic partners following its partnership with LG Corp.

Cohere is a Canadian sovereign AI company that helps enterprises and governments maintain direct control over their data, AI models, and infrastructure. It deploys AI models and its agentic AI platform not only on public clouds but also on enterprises’ own servers, private clouds, and closed networks isolated from external networks.

To mitigate concerns about data leaks that can occur when using external AI services via application programming interfaces (APIs), the company prioritizes installing AI directly within the environments where customers’ data resides. Its primary target industries are those with high security and regulatory compliance requirements, such as finance, manufacturing, telecommunications, healthcare, defense, and the public sector.

Establishing

a Korean Subsidiary… Hiring Double-Digit Numbers of Technical and Sales Staff

Cohere announced on the same day that it has begun the process of establishing a Korean subsidiary. The company expects the establishment to take approximately two to three months. A separate head of the Korean subsidiary will be appointed; until then, Jang Hwa-jin, President and Head of Asia-Pacific at Cohere, will serve in that role concurrently.

Coherent plans to hire a double-digit number of employees for its Korean subsidiary. For technical roles, the company will actively recruit Chonbang Field Deployment Engineers (FDEs) to deploy AI systems on-site at client locations. FDEs are responsible for installing Coherent’s solutions within enterprises, connecting them to databases and business applications, and implementing AI agents and business automation.

“While it is difficult to specify the exact headcount for the Korean subsidiary, we are preparing for significant double-digit hiring,” said CEO Jang. “We plan to recruit FDEs in Korea and certify technical personnel from partner companies to build the ecosystem together.”

The expansion of investment in Korea is driven by rapid customer growth. Coherent’s customer base in the Asia-Pacific region has increased fivefold over the past year, with approximately half of that growth coming from Korea. The company aims to more than triple its Asia-Pacific customer base over the next year and secure about half of those new customers in Korea.

Coherent established its Asia-Pacific hub in Seoul last year. While the Seoul hub oversees business strategy and sales performance for South Korea, Japan, and Singapore—as well as future markets such as India, Australia, and Taiwan—the new South Korean subsidiary will focus on acquiring domestic customers and developing local operations.

CEO Jang explained, “South Korea has the largest number of employees and customers in the Asia-Pacific region and is the market expected to grow the fastest going forward,” adding, “We will aggressively expand our business in South Korea even before the incorporation of the subsidiary is finalized.”

Expanding the Domestic Partner Ecosystem Following LG Corp

.
In Korea, LG CNS is serving as Cohere’s first key partner. LG CNS is responsible for applying Cohere’s solutions to its own operations while also selling and implementing them for domestic customers. The two companies are providing Cohere’s AI models and agentic AI platform tailored to the Korean language and the domestic industrial environment.

Following LG Corp., Coherent plans to expand its scope of collaboration to include other domestic companies and public institutions. During his visit to Korea, CRO O’Dowd also met with potential partners, clients, and government officials to discuss collaboration opportunities.

CEO Jang stated, “LG CNS is Coherent’s first and outstanding partner,” adding, “As we need to continue growing our partner ecosystem, we are engaging in discussions with a variety of companies.”

Discussions are also underway with domestic AI model developers regarding collaboration using Cohere’s agentic AI platform, “North.” North can connect not only Cohere’s proprietary models but also models developed in Korea, open-source models, and global frontier models. Customers can select the most suitable model based on their business characteristics, costs, and security requirements to build AI agents.

“The Core of Sovereign AI Is Customer Control”

Cohere emphasized that its strategy does not conflict with the concept of sovereign AI commonly used in Korea. While many in Korea view proprietary models developed with Korean technology as sovereign AI, Cohere presents the customer’s right to choose and control data, models, and infrastructure as the key criterion.

CEO Jang stated, “Customers must be able to choose their preferred models and infrastructure without sending data outside the company or the country,” adding, “It is crucial that data, models, and infrastructure remain under the customer’s control and that customers can make these decisions directly.”

According to Coherent, Korean companies are showing particularly high interest in on-premises and closed-network deployments. This is because many companies are concerned about where their data is stored and used when inputting internal data into external APIs. The company explains that if a Coherent model is installed on a client’s server, even the headquarters cannot suspend the model or verify the usage data and Agent AI configuration.

Cohere focuses on integrating AI with existing infrastructure and software rather than replacing systems that companies have already built. This approach reduces costs by applying small, efficient models to simple, repetitive tasks and connecting to large models only when complex inference is required.

CRO O’Dowd said, “Enterprise customers are most curious about what additional value can be generated in conjunction with the systems they’ve already invested in,” adding, “Cohere’s role is not to replace existing software but to complement it and make it more effective.”