KRAFTON appoints AI researcher Kangwook Lee as Chief AI Officer

KRAFTON, Inc. has appointed AI researcher Kangwook Lee as its Chief AI Officer, creating a new executive role focused on advancing AI research and long-term innovation.

Lee announced his appointment in a public post, writing: “Excited to share that I joined KRAFTON Inc. as the inaugural CAIO”.

He said in a post on LinkedIn, KRAFTON AI, the company’s AI research and development unit, is “already probably the strongest AI R&D entity for AI for gaming worldwide, and one of the best AI R&D entities in Korea. And we are not stopping there.”

Lee added that the company will continue “developing foundation research and applying it to advance AI for gaming: AI for better gaming experiences (stay tuned for PUBG Ally!) and AI for game development.”

He also said the company plans to expand into physical AI research. “Toward this goal, we founded a new physical AI company, Ludo Robotics, and I will be the CTO of it. We are just getting started, and I am really excited about what we can build! We are hiring in the Bay Area and Seoul, so if this sounds like your kind of problem, please reach out.”

Before he was appointed CAIO, Lee led KRAFTON’s Deep Learning Division. He is also serving as chief technology officer of Ludo Robotics, a newly established company focused on physical AI.

Prior to joining KRAFTON, Lee was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he served as an assistant professor and later associate professor with tenure. Earlier in his career, he held research positions at KAIST and was a graduate student researcher and instructor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lee has also worked in industry roles, including internships at Samsung Electronics and LG Display, as well as a software engineering internship at Lytmus, Inc.