The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) held the first Industrial Digital Transformation Committee meeting at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on January 13, where the members deliberated and confirmed the Industrial AI (artificial intelligence) Internalization Strategy (hereinafter “Strategy”).
The meeting was attended by relevant ministries’ officials and 13 private sector experts, and was presided by MOTIE’s Minister Lee Chang-yang.
MOTIE aims to raise the portion of companies that can utilize AI technology from the current one percent to 30 percent, and nurture over 100 AI supplier companies to achieve global competitiveness, all by 2030.
The Strategy for these aims is three-fold.
1)The first strategy is to internalize AI and nurture AI suppliers through commercialization of industrial AI solutions and acceleration of the development of technologies related to AI utilization.
The goal is for companies to internalize AI through user-supplier collaboration projects that employ AI solutions in core facilities and processes, and to secure world-leading AI solutions. Projects that impact the industry on a large scale will be designated as national projects and receive support across all cycles.
AI utilization will be made easier for user companies, and supplier companies will be equipped with the foundation technology to bolster their technological prowess.
2)The second strategy consists of three stages and aims to strengthen user companies’ capacity to utilize AI technology. The first stage is targeting. MOTIE will select candidate user companies that are capable of making voluntary investments and create outcomes. The second stage is to provide them with customized consultation services. The third stage is to build AI-based systems by which user companies can do their own data-collecting and data-processing.
Training up skilled labor is another important goal, composed of three types of education. One is to provide customized education ranging from beginner’s course in understanding AI to practical courses for actual application of AI technology. Two, an abbreviated form of required AI graduate courses (4-6 months) will be provided for non-AI majors to earn micro-degrees. Three, those holding master’s and doctoral degrees will be trained to lead the industrial innovation through fieldwork readiness education and industry-academia joint projects.
Meanwhile, MOTIE plans to manage a KRW 400 billion fund to assist the facilities investment and M&As of SMEs and middle-market companies.
3)The third strategy entails designating a collaboration support center to provide one-stop assistance in consultation, supply-demand matching and entering overseas markets, then gradually expanding the number of support centers.
MOTIE plans to build a platform where quality industrial data can be accessed, shared and exchanged. Automobile and home appliance users’ data will be collected to be accessed by relevant manufacturing and services companies, and incentive policy for data providers is under consideration. Data processing and exchange standards will need to be developed. A data utilization guideline will also be provided to protect usage and beneficiary rights.
Efforts will be made to remove unnecessary regulations that hinder data exchange and to build a regulatory support platform through which civilians can stay informed and respond to regulations.
Minister Lee Chang-yang acknowledged that current global economic conditions are serious, and remarked that while promoting exports and investment is critical, MOTIE’s mid-to-long term plans lie in actively pushing industrial transformation for the fundamental advancement of Korea’s industrial system.
To this end, the Minister emphasized that AI is key to Korea’s industrial transformation, and stated that all policy efforts will be based on the abovementioned Strategy to internalize AI across all industries, and that small and big regulations will be scrutinized for improvement in the process in order to preemptively tackle obstacles in business innovation.
He added that “amid concerns over economic downturn, making new investment and attempts is not easy, but these times are all the better opportunities for companies to invest in AI and secure novel forms of competitiveness.”
Source: Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy