PeopleofSuperintelligence

Lab leader

Kyunghoon Bae

Also known as 배경훈

Kyunghoon Bae is an AI researcher who led LG AI Research and now serves as South Korea's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT. He earned degrees in electronic engineering, physics and computer vision at Kwangwoon University, then developed robotics and video analytics systems at Samsung Thales and SK Telecom. At LG, he led AI research, coauthored L-Verse for image-text generation, and explained EXAONE 3.0 before the lab published its reasoning models EXAONE Deep and EXAONE 4.0. He received the 2023 Silver Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit for his work in software and AI.

Now at
LG
Born
1976
Badges
Links
Website and Google Scholar

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 2001–2006

    Degrees at Kwangwoon

    He earns a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering and physics in 2001, a master's degree in computer vision in 2003, and a PhD in computer vision in 2006 at Kwangwoon University.

  2. 2006–2016

    Robotics and video analytics

    From 2006 to 2011, he works as a senior research engineer at Samsung Thales on unmanned robots and target acquisition for intelligent robots. At SK Telecom from 2011 to 2016, he works as a principal research engineer on video analytics, companion robots and visual recognition.

  3. 2017–2020

    AI leadership at LG

    In 2017, he becomes director and head of LG Uplus's AI Technology Division. From 2019 to 2020, he serves as vice president and head of the AI Division at LG Sciencepark, with projects in AI drug and materials discovery.

  4. 2021

    Leading LG AI Research

    In 2021, he leads LG AI Research as its representative and gives the keynote at its first-anniversary event, where the lab unveils EXAONE, a multimodal model for language and visual data.

  5. 2022–2023

    L-Verse and EXAONE 2.0

    With coauthors, he presents L-Verse in 2022, an architecture for image-to-text and text-to-image generation. In July 2023, LG AI Research unveils EXAONE 2.0, its large-scale AI model.

  6. 2023

    A Silver Tower Order

    In 2023, he receives the Silver Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit for contributions to software industry development and the expansion of LG Group's AI technologies.

  7. 2024–2025

    EXAONE reasoning models

    At ACL 2024, he explains EXAONE 3.0. In 2025, EXAONE Deep targets math and coding reasoning, while EXAONE 4.0 combines reasoning and non-reasoning modes.

  8. As of October 2026

    Deputy Prime Minister and Minister

    In 2025, he becomes Minister of Science and ICT. As of October 2026, he serves as South Korea's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT.

Career

  1. From 2021LGRepresentative
  2. 2017–2019LG UplusDirector and Head of the AI Technology Division
  3. 2011–2016SK TelecomPrincipal Research Engineer
  4. 2006–2011Samsung ThalesSenior Research Engineer

Education

  1. 2006Kwangwoon UniversityPhD in computer vision
  2. 2003Kwangwoon UniversityMaster's degree in computer vision
  3. 2001Kwangwoon UniversityBachelor's degree in electronic engineering and physics

From the biography.

  1. Of 216 AI researchers who entered public life, 83 held advisory seats and 58 took public rolesIncludes Kyunghoon Bae. Of 216 AI researchers who entered public life, 83 held advisory seats and 58 took public roles. Another 97 people moved from public careers into AI organizations or research, with 62% of dated records starting from 2020 on.
  2. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  3. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIWe estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  4. 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birthWe estimate that 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birth (520 of 1,198 people with known birth and employment countries).

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Kyunghoon Bae yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Kyunghoon Bae (배경훈), Ph.D. sites.google.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Present and Future of LG AI Research through LG AI Talk Concert - The Best of 2021 lgresearch.ai. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. L-Verse: Bidirectional Generation Between Image and Text openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. LG AI Talk Concert 2023, Large-Scale AI EXAONE 2.0 Unveiled for the First Time lgresearch.ai. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Chief Kyunghoon Bae Gains Recognition for His Leadership in Innovative AI lgresearch.ai. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. LG AI Research Unveils EXAONE 3.0 at ACL 2024 lgresearch.ai. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. EXAONE Deep: Reasoning Enhanced Language Models arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. EXAONE 4.0: Unified Large Language Models Integrating Non-reasoning and Reasoning Modes arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Minister - Ministry of Science and ICT english.msit.go.kr. Checked 20 October 2026.