Korean AI models absent from OpenRouter top 10 as firms push domestic use
OpenRouter's top 10 models by token throughput over seven days contained seven Chinese and three US models, with none Korean, digitaltoday.co.kr reported.
No Korean model appeared among the top 10 models by token throughput over the previous seven days on the global distribution platform OpenRouter, as of November 1, according to digitaltoday.co.kr. The list was made up of seven models from Chinese companies and three from US companies.
On Hugging Face, Alibaba's Qwen 3.5-35B-A3B recorded about 1.7 million downloads and DeepSeek V4 Flash about 1.05 million over the past month as of November 2. Korean models trailed far behind: SK Telecom's A.X K2 had 10,135 downloads, Upstage's Solar Open 2 had 9,355 and LG AI Research's K-Exaone 2.0 had 4,108.
Among the companies taking part in the Korean independent AI foundation model project, 독파모, Upstage does supply models to OpenRouter, but those are its existing models rather than 독파모 outputs.
Domestic applications expand
The participating companies are instead widening their use inside Korea. Upstage is pursuing applying Solar Open 2 to the portal Daum and the AI agent platform Timely. SK Telecom is running demonstrations of manufacturing-specific AI agents with KG Steel and Konek, extending the work into defense and bio fields and reviewing API supply. LG AI Research recently began a demonstration with Webcash applying its model to corporate fund management and financial institution management information work.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said that providing API services and commercialising a model after its open-source release are matters for companies to decide autonomously, but that such efforts can be considered in evaluation.
Quick answers
Which models topped OpenRouter's usage rankings?
As of November 1, the top 10 models by token throughput over the previous seven days included seven from Chinese companies and three from US companies, with no Korean model listed.
How many Hugging Face downloads did Korean models get?
Over the past month as of November 2, SK Telecom's A.X K2 had 10,135 downloads, Upstage's Solar Open 2 had 9,355 and LG AI Research's K-Exaone 2.0 had 4,108.
Where are Korean AI companies applying their models domestically?
Upstage is pursuing use of Solar Open 2 on Daum and Timely, SK Telecom is demonstrating manufacturing AI agents with KG Steel and Konek, and LG AI Research has begun a demonstration with Webcash.