President Park Il-pyung: "Will Become Game Changer in Electronics Industry Through Software Innovation"

LG Electronics CTO President Park Il-pyung held a press briefing in Las Vegas, USA, and revealed the company's technology strategy to lead the artificial intelligence field.

Based on the recently launched global artificial intelligence brand 'ThinQ,' President Park presented the direction that artificial intelligence technology and platforms will take. He emphasized that "unlike the past when people learned to use products and services, a change is occurring where products and services learn people through artificial intelligence technology, and LG ThinQ will become a game changer in the electronics industry through software innovation."

Global Artificial Intelligence Brand 'ThinQ' Provides Practical Customer Value Across Daily Life

LG Electronics plans to implement artificial intelligence through 'ThinQ' that provides practical customer value across all aspects of daily life. The differentiated artificial intelligence is based on ▲product usage pattern data accumulated through selling products worldwide, ▲a broad portfolio of products and services, ▲partnerships established with domestic and international companies in various fields. The strengths of 'ThinQ' are condensed into three categories: customized evolution, broad touchpoints, and an open strategy.

LG 'ThinQ' aims to be an artificial intelligence that grows while spending time with the family. It provides optimized functions that understand users and families through artificial intelligence technology and evolve independently.

Until now, people studied to use products conveniently, but 'ThinQ' undergoes a process where products learn people and evolve on their own. It provides functions optimized to the customer's 'habits' of using the product and the 'space' where the customer is active.

LG Electronics believes that home appliance technology accumulated over the past 60 years will greatly contribute to the artificial intelligence field. Additionally, the company continues to expand infrastructure so that products and services under the 'ThinQ' brand can become smarter by exchanging information with each other. To this end, LG Electronics has been equipped with wireless internet (Wi-Fi) as standard in home appliances launched since last year.

LG Electronics plans to provide an integrated artificial intelligence experience through 'ThinQ' seamlessly across boundaries between inside and outside the home. In fact, artificial intelligence technology is being applied to a diverse product portfolio ranging from home appliances such as TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, and speakers to smartphones, automobile parts, and air conditioning systems.

LG Electronics has been leading the artificial intelligence home appliance field by launching refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, and robot vacuums equipped with proprietary artificial intelligence technology last year. The company is also investing capabilities in securing technologies related to autonomous driving and connected cars in its automobile parts business.

Additionally, LG Electronics is continuously expanding its robot portfolio for commercial services so that artificial intelligence experiences can extend to public facilities outside the home. At this CES, LG Electronics is additionally showcasing three new concept robots including a serving robot, porter robot, and shopping cart robot. Following the successful pilot service using guide robots and cleaning robots at Incheon International Airport last year, the company is in discussions to introduce robot services in various areas such as shopping malls and hotels.

Based on an open strategy, LG Electronics provides artificial intelligence that can create greater customer value from the user's perspective. In addition to proprietary artificial intelligence technology, the company actively utilizes technologies from global companies to provide converged solutions that are optimal from the user's standpoint.

LG Electronics has established partnerships with domestic and international companies including Google, Amazon, and Naver in various fields such as IT and telecommunications, and is collaborating in the artificial intelligence field.

LG Electronics is committed to providing artificial intelligence that users can use most conveniently, taking into account the customer's environment such as residential area and language used. In particular, the company is discovering competitive partners in fields where synergies can be created. Examples include the artificial intelligence TV 'LG OLED TV ThinQ' equipped with Google's artificial intelligence assistant 'Google Assistant,' the artificial intelligence speaker 'ThinQ Speaker,' and the artificial intelligence speaker 'ThinQ Hub' developed in cooperation with Naver.

Continuously Expanding 'ThinQ's' Open Ecosystem Through 'Software Innovation'

In the artificial intelligence field, data analysis and recognition technology that enables proper recognition of information received from outside products through sensors and microphones, and deep learning algorithm technology that constructs artificial neural networks to enable accumulated data to learn independently, are very important.

LG Electronics established an artificial intelligence research institute under the Software Center within the CTO division in June and is researching and developing technologies essential for artificial intelligence product and service development such as recognition technologies including voice recognition, image recognition, and biometric recognition, and deep learning algorithms.

LG Electronics has secured various artificial intelligence technologies based on data accumulated since the 1990s through home appliance and mobile businesses. Examples include ▲technology that removes noise around guide robots to increase voice recognition accuracy, ▲technology that learns information recognized through human detection sensors mounted on air conditioners and independently determines spaces where people primarily stay.

Additionally, LG Electronics' artificial intelligence research institute in Korea and overseas research institutes in the United States, Russia, India, and other locations are collaborating closely to strengthen artificial intelligence capabilities.

To accelerate the development of artificial intelligence products and services, LG Electronics continues to improve the utilization and accessibility of its proprietary artificial intelligence platform 'DeepThinQ.' Unlike general-purpose artificial intelligence technology, 'DeepThinQ' provides functions optimized for the 'products' used by customers and the 'spaces' where customers are active. It understands not only external environments but also customer lifestyle patterns and displays functions tailored to them. This aligns with 'ThinQ's' goal of 'customized evolution.'

Recently, LG Electronics distributed 'DeepThinQ 1.0' across the entire company so that developers can more easily apply artificial intelligence technology to various products. 'DeepThinQ 1.0' is a modularized package of LG Electronics' various artificial intelligence technologies.

LG Electronics plans to expand the operating systems supported by 'DeepThinQ' beyond the current Linux to include Android and webOS so that developers can utilize it more diversely.

LG Electronics is continuously expanding the scope of the artificial intelligence ecosystem based on three major open strategies: ▲open platform ▲open partnership ▲open connectivity.

For 'open connectivity,' the company plans to utilize the standards of the OCF (Open Connectivity Foundation) to enable interoperation not only between home appliances sold by LG Electronics but also with devices from other manufacturers. The OCF, the world's largest IoT standardization organization, has approximately 390 member companies.

Additionally, LG Electronics accelerates growth through open innovation by collaborating externally with universities, research institutes, startups, and others in artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous driving, and other fields.

To this end, LG Electronics conducts 'Open Innovation Tech Fairs' annually, touring strategic cities in the United States. The company also plans to form investment funds and promote technology discovery and new business model development in collaboration with external startups.