Ministry of SMEs and Startups Establishes World's First Public-Private Partnership 'Artificial Intelligence Manufacturing Platform'

KAMP Contest, NHN-KT Consortium Finally Selected

On the 9th, Park Young-sun, Minister of SMEs and Startups, is giving a briefing on the establishment of an AI manufacturing platform at the Government Seoul Office. Photo by Ministry of SMEs and Startups

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] The government has launched the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) manufacturing platform, ‘KAMP (Korea AI Manufacturing Platform),’ marking the first step into the Smart Manufacturing 2.0 era.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 9th that it has selected a private cloud consortium of NHN and KT to collaborate on building the AI manufacturing platform and will officially commence the project.

As the first phase of the 'AI and Data-Based SME Manufacturing Innovation Advancement Strategy' announced last July, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups conducted a public competition for private cloud providers.

Domestic and international cloud service providers such as Douzone Bizon-Naver Business Platform, NHN-KT, and SmileServe-Bespin Global showed strong interest and submitted business plans for this competition.

The finally selected NHN consortium was recognized not only for NHN and KT’s large-scale infrastructure and stable operational capabilities but also for providing access to various AI platform services such as Brightics AI, AICentro, T3Q.ai, and AIBLab.

The Ministry explained that the AI manufacturing platform is significant because it consolidates data storage and analysis infrastructure, AI experts, and demonstration services that are difficult for small and medium manufacturing companies to establish on their own.

The private cloud providers will supply core infrastructure such as large-capacity storage and high-performance computing resources for the AI manufacturing platform, as well as platform environments including AI analytics and software development. They will also be responsible for security measures to prevent external hacking and information leaks, along with technical support for service usage.

The government will collaborate with specialized institutions such as the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Promotion Group and KAIST to provide expert consulting and on-site demonstrations. Additionally, through research and development (R&D) and smart factory dissemination projects, it plans to develop and expand cloud-based AI smart factories.

Park Young-sun, Minister of SMEs and Startups, stated, “Through the AI manufacturing platform, we will support small and medium manufacturing companies to use AI services at the level of large corporations with minimal costs,” adding, “We will actively open the era of ‘My Manufacturing Data,’ which utilizes manufacturing data generated in smart factories and returns the benefits to the data-producing manufacturing companies.”