LG Unveils Game-Changing AI Model: Meet Exaone 4.0!

LG AI Research, the artificial intelligence arm of LG Group, unveiled Exaone 4.0 on Tuesday, marking a significant milestone as Korea’s first hybrid AI model. This innovative system combines the language fluency of large language models with the advanced problem-solving capabilities of reasoning AI.

This breakthrough represents a major leap in Korea’s ambition to lead in next-generation AI technology. The model’s ability to both understand human language and logically reason through complex tasks positions it at the forefront of AI development.

“We are committed to advancing our research and development efforts to ensure Exaone becomes Korea’s leading frontier AI model, proving its competitiveness on the global stage,” said Lee Jin-sik, who leads the Exaone lab at LG AI Research.

Globally, only a select few companies have announced similar hybrid AI architectures. These include U.S.-based Anthropic with its Claude model and China’s Alibaba with Qwen. Industry insiders report that OpenAI is also working on GPT-5, which is expected to adopt a hybrid structure.

In comprehensive benchmark evaluations spanning various domains – including knowledge comprehension, problem-solving, coding, scientific reasoning, and mathematics – Exaone 4.0 outperformed leading open-weight models from the United States, China, and France. This impressive performance establishes it as one of the world’s most capable AI models.

LG has introduced two versions of the model: a powerful 32B expert model with 32 billion parameters and a more compact 1.2B on-device model with 1.2 billion parameters.
The expert model has demonstrated its capabilities by successfully passing written exams for six national professional licenses in Korea. These include tests for physicians, dentists, traditional Korean medicine practitioners, customs brokers, appraisers, and insurance adjusters – underscoring its domain-level expertise.

The on-device model is designed for practical applications in consumer electronics such as home appliances, smartphones, automotive infotainment systems, and robots. It operates independently on devices without requiring connection to external servers. This design ensures faster processing, enhanced privacy, and robust security – key advantages in our increasingly AI-integrated world.

Despite being half the size of its predecessor, the Exaone 3.5 2.4B model released in December, the new on-device model surpasses OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini in specialized evaluations across mathematics, coding, and science. This achievement positions it as the most powerful AI in its weight class globally.

To accelerate open research and innovation, LG has made Exaone 4.0 available as an open-weight model on Hugging Face, the leading global platform for open-source AI. While open-weight models do not disclose architectural blueprints or training data, they make the trained weights publicly accessible. This allows developers to fine-tune and redistribute the models, fostering further innovation.

Notable peers in the open-weight category include Google’s Gemma, Meta’s LLaMA, Microsoft’s Phi, Alibaba’s Qwen, and Mistral AI’s Mistral.

Additionally, LG has partnered with Friendly AI, an official Hugging Face distribution partner, to launch a commercial API service for Exaone 4.0. This service allows developers and enterprises to easily deploy the model without requiring high-end GPUs, thereby broadening its accessibility across industries.

In his New Year’s address, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo underscored the group’s long-term vision for artificial intelligence, describing it as a core driver of future innovation.

“LG has grown by constantly pioneering uncharted territory and creating new value,” Koo stated. “Now, with AI, we aim to reshape everyday life by making advanced technologies more accessible and meaningful, helping people reclaim their time for what truly matters.”

Koo emphasized that LG’s AI efforts extend beyond technological leadership. The company’s goal is to enable a smarter, more human-centered lifestyle through seamless AI integration across its products and services.

In a related development, LG hosted “Exaone Partners Day” on Tuesday, bringing together 22 domestic partner companies to discuss strategies for expanding the Exaone ecosystem. The group plans to further highlight its AI ambitions at the upcoming “LG AI Talk Concert 2025” in Seoul on July 22. At this event, LG will unveil its latest research breakthroughs and present a roadmap for future AI innovation.