Hyundai Motor Group plans to launch a research unit of its artificial intelligence division in the heart of Silicon Valley within this year, establishing its first overseas division entirely for AI development, the company said Thursday.

The AIR Center will be the latest addition to Hyundai Motor’s AI projects. The carmaker launched the Artificial Intelligence Research Lab late last year and hired Kim Jeong-hee, a South Korean expert in deep learning and former leader of Naver Lab’s intelligence unit, to lead the office.

The company refrained from disclosing the size of investment to the planned R&D center in the US, but the center will focus on observing market trends and noticeable projects under progress. It will also communicate with Hyundai’s venture capital unit Cradle to make future investment in promising AI startups there, according to a Hyundai official said. 

AIR Lab, based in Seoul, also plans to expand its research unit by hiring talented engineers to secure “source technology” in the field of AI. In its announcement on Thursday, it said it is looking for experts in eight categories, including AI platform, speech recognition, computer vision, natural language processing and data engineering.

The company plans to hold a recruiting forum in San Diego next month to secure global talents. It will also expand partnerships with graduate schools on AI development as part of industry-academia cooperation.

By Cho Chung(christory@heraldcorp.com)