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BOK becomes first central bank in the world to build, use in-house AI platform for everyday operations

Published: 21 Jan. 2026, 18:22 Updated: 21 Jan. 2026, 19:06

Bank of Korea Gov. Rhee Chang-yong, fourth from left in the front row; Naver founder and board chairman Lee Hae-jin, third from left in the front row; and Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon, second from left in the front row, pose for a photo with other participants during the central bank and Naver's joint conference at the bank's conference hall in Jung District, central Seoul, on Jan. 21. [NAVER CLOUD]

Korea's central bank on Wednesday launched an in-house AI platform built with Naver that will support internal research and data-driven decision-making while operating on a fully isolated network.

This makes the Bank of Korea (BOK) the first central bank in the world to build and deploy a proprietary generative AI platform for day-to-day operations, according to the bank.

The system, named BOKI, short for Bank of Korea Intelligence, was unveiled at a joint conference hosted by the central bank and Naver at the BOK’s conference hall in central Seoul.

BOK Gov. Rhee Chang-yong attended the event alongside Lee Hae-jin, the founder and chairman of Naver; Choi Soo-yeon, the CEO of Naver; and Kim Yu-won, the head of Naver Cloud, as the two sides outlined the results of their cooperation.

The central bank said employees will use the platform to search, summarize and translate large volumes of financial and economic materials. BOKI will also support data-based policy analysis and decision-making.

The system operates on an on-premise network fully separated from external connections, which the BOK said prevents the risk of data leaks in the security-sensitive central banking environment.

The two sides said they plan to continue training and fine-tuning the system using the central bank’s data to further develop BOKI into a finance- and economy-focused AI model.

Naver Cloud provided the cloud infrastructure and core technologies, including large language models, for the platform and said it plans to work on similar projects for government agencies and financial institutions for which data security is critical.

Lee said the project could have an impact beyond the central bank.

“I hope this service will not only become a practical tool that transforms the BOK’s work culture but also help raise Korea’s financial and economic analysis capabilities and strengthen national competitiveness,” he said.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY HONG SANG-JI [[email protected]]