New AI alliance launched

A group of South Korea’s leading companies in 10 major sectors including automobiles, shipbuilding, battery, robots and steel, agreed to form an alliance to strengthen competitiveness by linking and cooperating on value chains across industries with the latest artificial intelligence technologies, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Tuesday.

The Industry AI Alliance is comprised of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, public organizations and over 400 domestic firms, including 20 major companies. Some notable players among industry representatives include Hyundai Motor Group, LG Electronics, Hyundai Steel, LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDS and SK C&C.

The ministry said it is expanding and reorganizing the existing Industrial Digital Transformation Solidarity, which was formed in 2020 with some 400 companies and institutions to be included in the new alliance.

For AI technology to be quickly applied across industries, the alliance will be operated through three technology subcommittees for mobility, machinery and optimization. It will also be operated via two policy subcommittees for industry data as well as laws and regulations.

Sixteen major firms from the demand side will participate directly in the alliance’s subcommittees to lead the digital transformation by industry. Networking among companies on both demand and supply sides will be carried out through in-house events and mentor-mentee programs, the ministry said.

By the end of this year, the alliance's technology subdivisions plan to come up with 40 commercialization projects for industrial AI solutions based on collaboration between demand and supply companies. The alliance's policy subdivisions will look to identify 15 industrial data utilization promotion tasks, as well as more than 10 legal and regulatory improvements.

The ministry said that discussions on over 10 projects are already underway, including data linkage management across the entire life cycle from automobile design to used car sales; interconnection between smart factories, equipment, shipping and ports; transfer of major DX solutions for power products to partners; and AI-based process control for minimizing waste in cement production.

“We need fundamental innovation in the industrial sector to overcome structural limitations and respond to global uncertainties,” First Industry Vice Minister Jang Young-jin said in his congratulatory message on the launch of the alliance, adding that the government will actively support the entire value chain of each industry to increase their competitiveness beyond individual companies.