South Korea's Clica Wins Exclusive Slot in Singapore-France Defense AI Challenge
The AI lightweighting specialist is the sole company selected for a critical edge deployment track in a joint global defense program.
South Korean AI startup Clica has been named the only company selected for a specialized track in the AI Joint Challenge, a global defense cooperation program. The selection secures the company a Proof of Concept (PoC) project to validate its optimization technology in mission-critical environments.
The challenge is co-hosted by a coalition of defense and technology entities, including France's Ministerial Agency for Defence AI (AMIAD), Singapore's Future Systems Technology Directorate (FSTD) of the Ministry of Defence, and Cap Vista, an organization under Singapore's Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA). Clica was the exclusive winner of the track focused on "AI optimization technology for field deployment in SWaP-constrained environments," referring to the strict limitations of size, weight, and power typical of military hardware.
The Edge AI Necessity
In defense and remote operations, AI cannot rely on massive cloud infrastructures due to severe connectivity gaps and power constraints. This creates a critical need for "Edge AI," where models run directly on local hardware. To address this, Clica utilizes a proprietary Automated Compression Engine (ACE), which reduces the size of AI models while maintaining minimal performance loss.
Beyond simple compression, the company is developing ClikaRT, an integrated runtime designed to deploy these lightweight models across a diverse ecosystem. The platform supports multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Linux, and is compatible with various hardware architectures such as CUDA, Vulkan, x86, ARM64, and NPUs.
Strategic Implications
This selection validates Clica's technical capacity to operate in environments where efficiency is not just a preference but a requirement for operational success. By securing a PoC with two major defense ministries, Clica is transitioning from a provider of technical tools to a potential global B2G platform provider for edge AI infrastructure.
"In field and mission-critical environments where access to large clouds is limited, efficient AI operation on edge devices determines the success or failure of an operation," said Kim Na-yul, CEO of Clica.
Next Steps
The upcoming PoC project will serve as the primary benchmark for Clica's technology, testing whether its compression and runtime capabilities can meet the rigorous demands of actual field deployment. The results of this collaboration between the South Korean firm and the Singaporean and French defense agencies will likely determine the scalability of Clica's edge AI platform within the global defense market.