PeopleofSuperintelligence

Lab leader

Jung-Woo Ha

Also known as JungWoo Ha, 하정우

Jung-Woo Ha led research on NAVER's language models and now holds a South Korean AI policy role. At Seoul National University, he earned a computer science PhD in 2015 after serving as a system administrator in its College of Engineering from 2008 to 2015. At NAVER, he led the AI Lab from 2015 to 2025 and spearheaded HyperCLOVA X. He co-authored studies on HyperCLOVA in 2021 and in-context learning in 2022, and received the Young Engineer Award in 2024. During 2025, he served as Senior Secretary to the President for AI and Future Planning, and he has served as Standing Vice Chair of the National AI Strategy Committee since August 2026.

Now at
National AI Strategy Committee
Works
121
Citations
9,485
h-index
27

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2008–2015

    Systems administration at SNU

    At Seoul National University's College of Engineering, he works as a system administrator from 2008 to 2015.

  2. 2015

    A computer science PhD

    In 2015, he earns a computer science PhD at Seoul National University.

  3. 2015–2025

    Leading NAVER AI Lab

    At NAVER, he leads the AI Lab from 2015 to 2025 and spearheads HyperCLOVA X, Korea's flagship large language model.

  4. 2021

    Introducing HyperCLOVA

    A 2021 paper lists him as a co-author of “What Changes Can Large-scale Language Models Bring? Intensive Study on HyperCLOVA: Billions-scale Korean Generative Pretrained Transformers.”

  5. 2022

    Studying in-context learning

    A 2022 study lists him as co-author of “On the Effect of Pretraining Corpora on In-context Learning by a Large-scale Language Model.”

  6. 2024

    A Young Engineer Award

    In 2024, he receives the Young Engineer Award.

  7. 2025

    Senior Secretary for AI

    By November 2025, he serves as Senior Secretary to the President for AI and Future Planning.

  8. Since August 2026

    Standing vice chair of AI strategy

    In August 2026, he takes office as full-time vice chair of the National AI Strategy Committee. At the 2026 Climate Tech Startup Summit, he is its Standing Vice Chair.

Sources and credits

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  1. Jung-Woo Ha – Deep learning, Computer vision, NLP, and AI applications aidljwha.wordpress.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  2. Toward Asia’s AI Capital: Korea’s National AI Strategy (ZOOM-ONLY) – US-Asia Technology Management Center asia.stanford.edu. Checked 15 October 2026.
  3. What Changes Can Large-scale Language Models Bring? Intensive Study on HyperCLOVA: Billions-scale Korean Generative Pretrained Transformers - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  4. On the Effect of Pretraining Corpora on In-context Learning by a Large-scale Language Model - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  5. Ha Jung-woo appointed vice chair of National AI Strategy Committee digitaltoday.co.kr. Checked 15 October 2026.
  6. Prof. Haewon C. McJeon Delivers Keynote at the 2026 Climate Tech Startup Summit – KAIST IAM Group kaist-iam.github.io. Checked 15 October 2026.