{
  "id": 19098720,
  "title": "LG AI Research opens K-EXAONE 2.5 API free of charge",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/09/lg-ai-research-opens-k-exaone-2-5-api-free-of-charge",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-11-09T05:42:03.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Korea Times",
    "slug": "the-korea-times-koreatimes",
    "url": "https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/companies/20261109/lg-ai-research-opens-k-exaone-25-api-free-of-charge"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "LG AI Research unveiled the application programming interface (API) for its enhanced EXAONE 2.5 foundation model without any charge, revealing a performance improvement of more than 70 percent within just eight weeks. The announcement was made at NVIDIA AI Day Seoul 2026, which took place at Coex in southern Seoul on Monday. From that day forward, developers, startups, companies, and research institutions can utilize the model in their services and research free of charge by acquiring an API key via the company's platform, docs.exaone.ai. K-EXAONE 2.5 is a technology verification model developed by LG AI Research through additional training on K-EXAONE 2.0, the second model they created under the government's sovereign AI foundation model project. This initiative aims to create locally developed AI models to lessen Korea's dependence on foreign systems. According to the company's own tests on open datasets, K-EXAONE 2.5 matches the performance of leading Chinese open-weight models DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and GLM 5.3 (max) in agentic AI, where AI devises tasks and employs tools independently.",
  "summary": "LG AI Research, the artificial intelligence (AI) research arm of LG Group, opened the application programming interface (API) for its upgraded EXAONE 2.5 foundation model free of charge, reporting a performance boost of over 70 percent in just eight weeks. The company announced the move at NVIDIA AI Day Seoul 2026, held at Coex in southern Seoul on Monday. Starting the same day, developers,…",
  "key_points": [
    "LG AI Research offers free K-EXAONE 2.5 API",
    "Model shows 70% performance boost in 8 weeks",
    "K-EXAONE 2.5 matches top Chinese open-weight models"
  ],
  "editors_take": "Providing free access to its high-performance foundation model accelerates the development of domestic technology and strengthens South Korea's ability to compete against foreign AI systems.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}