Samsung Electronics Scores Perfect Marks in All AI Competitiveness Categories, Ranks No. 1 in Korea... Still a Latecomer Globally

CEO Score Corporate Data Institute Ranks Companies
Evaluation Based on Domestic AI Patents and Academic Achievements
Samsung Electronics Tops All Six Categories with a Perfect Score of 600
Naver and LG Follow in Second and Third, Excelling in Research and Academia
Lagging on the Global Stage as U.S. and Chinese Firms Dominate

A recent survey found that Samsung Electronics possesses the highest level of artificial intelligence (AI) competitiveness among South Korean companies. Naver and LG followed in second and third place, respectively. However, all of these leading domestic companies remain far behind global big tech firms, prompting calls for greater efforts from each company and nationwide support.

Samsung Electronics Seocho Building, Seocho-gu, Seoul Photo by Yonhap News

On September 10, CEO Score, a corporate data research institute, announced these results after comprehensively evaluating the AI competitiveness of the top 191 companies in Korea based on domestic AI patents and academic papers. The evaluation measured AI competitiveness across six categories: technological capability (patent citations), patent activity (number of registered patents), academic activity (number of papers published at the world’s top three AI conferences), research impact (number of paper citations), number of AI technology personnel, and number of AI majors. For each category, the company with the highest score was given 100 points, and other companies were scored relative to that benchmark.

In this assessment, Samsung Electronics ranked first in all six categories, achieving a perfect score of 600 points. Specifically, Samsung Electronics recorded 1,079 registered patents, 1,347 patent citations, 59 published papers, 315 paper citations, 50,872 AI technology personnel, and 28,058 AI majors.

Naver ranked second with 162.9 points, while LG came in third with 155.9 points. Naver demonstrated its research capabilities by excelling in academic activity, with 25 published papers and 247 citations. LG showed strong competitiveness in both patents (400 registered, 529 citations) and papers (19 published). LG’s evaluation combined the capabilities of LG AI Research, which oversees group-wide AI research, and LG Electronics, which is responsible for business operations.

The following companies rounded out the top ten: Krafton (42.5 points), KT (42.2 points), Coupang (38.8 points), Hyundai Motor Company (30.1 points), Samsung SDS (28.8 points), SK Telecom (19.7 points), and StradVision (19.2 points).

By industry, Samsung Electronics, LG, and Hyundai Motor Company led the manufacturing sector, while Naver and Coupang were at the forefront of the internet and platform sector. Among the three major telecom companies, LG Uplus lagged behind KT and SK Telecom in competitiveness. In the software and IT sector, Samsung SDS, Deep Auto, and StradVision were leading. Among game companies, NCSoft demonstrated strong capabilities, second only to Krafton.

Despite these rankings, South Korean companies still lag significantly in the global market. When comparing the number of papers published at the world’s top three AI conferences, Alphabet led with 820 papers, followed by Microsoft (414 papers), Meta (385 papers), and Amazon (273 papers), with major U.S. big tech firms dominating the upper ranks. Chinese companies such as ByteDance (249 papers), Alibaba Group (235 papers), Tencent (210 papers), and Huawei (198 papers) also ranked highly. Among South Korean firms, Samsung Electronics ranked 12th with 59 papers. Naver (25 papers) and LG (19 papers) ranked 30th and 40th, respectively, placing them within the top 50 but still trailing far behind American and Chinese companies. Only Samsung Electronics (39th) and Naver (47th) made it into the top 50 in terms of citations at the three major AI conferences.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.