[From the Top Engineer] ④ Kim Young-ok, HD Hyundai CAIO "Optimizing Ship Routes with AI... Will Expand to All Fields"

Developing AI Technologies to Enhance the Business Environment
Focus on 'Increasing Customer Value' and 'Strengthening Competitiveness'
Applying AI Beyond Products to On-Site Operations
Improving Work Efficiency and Addressing Safety Issues
Establishing an AI Center to Tackle Group-Wide Challenges
Overcoming the Threat of China's Rise with Differentiation Strategies

Unlike regular vehicle roads, the sea has no traffic lights or roads. This is why captains had to rely on their experience and know-how when selecting the optimal route for ship navigation. Last year, HD Hyundai broke the mold by developing ‘OceanWise.’ OceanWise is a kind of ‘navigation system for the sea’ that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide ships with the optimal sailing route. It analyzes departure and arrival schedules, weather, routes, cargo volume, and more to recommend the best path. HD Hyundai successfully commercialized the OceanWise service in January.

Youngok Kim, HD Hyundai’s Chief AI Officer (CAIO), played a pivotal role in the development and commercialization of OceanWise in collaboration with the business organization. In an interview with Asia Economy, Kim emphasized, "OceanWise is one of HD Hyundai’s successful business cases branded on an AI basis." Previously, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) was responsible for AI tasks as well, but as AI usage expanded, the CAIO position was created separately.

Kim Young-ok, CAIO of HD Hyundai, is being interviewed by Asia Economy at the HD Hyundai headquarters in Gyeonggi-do. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo

"Products are fundamental... AI is also used in work"

Kim was appointed as HD Hyundai’s first CAIO in September 2022. According to Kim, the core of HD Hyundai’s AI strategy is ‘increasing customer value’ and ‘strengthening competitiveness.’ "Manufacturing can be thought of simply in two ways. One is to make good products and sell them well, and the other is to ensure customers use them well. If AI adds differentiated functions that provide value to customers in the products, both customer value and our product competitiveness increase together. Simply put, AI utilization is a means to create better products and enhance customer value."

The scope of AI technology is not limited to products. HD Hyundai faces a labor shortage due to recent population decline and the aversion to manufacturing jobs, despite the necessity of securing and retaining skilled technical personnel. There is a prevailing view that hiring foreign workers will have clear limits in the future. Kim said, "The work of converting tacit knowledge of skilled technicians into explicit knowledge so that it can be properly passed on to junior technicians, and safely performing tasks by deploying robots?these are well-known AI technologies. How appropriately these are utilized across management will determine corporate competitiveness."

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries yard view. Photo by HD Hyundai

Setting goals by business... AI Center oversees

Kim revealed that in shipbuilding, related technologies are focused on developing ▲integrated autonomous navigation solutions ▲foreign worker support services based on large language models (LLM) ▲vision-based fire detection and other manufacturing safety solutions. OceanWise is part of this blueprint. He said, "We are additionally developing technology where AI algorithms use big data and location information inside and outside ships to measure and predict carbon emissions and suggest optimal routes that minimize fuel consumption," adding, "We aim to solve the recent hot topic of carbon emission reduction with AI."

Shipbuilding is also an industry with a high proportion of foreign workers. Due to this environment, new employees often face communication difficulties. He said, "For example, terms frequently used on site like 'Osamari' (a Japanese term meaning 'to finish work') were useless even with translation tools." HD Hyundai developed a shipbuilding-tailored translation service. Kim explained, "We established 13,000 standard shipbuilding terms used on site and nationally, and 4,200 work instruction sentences from the shipbuilding process, and trained them on the LLM." He added, "We have now added voice recognition functionality."

Regarding construction machinery, AI services are being developed with a focus on solving safety issues on site. Kim said, "Factory sites are environments with high risks of accidents such as falls," and added, "AI learns from that data, and the safety monitoring solution HiCAMS will also be expanded and applied to factory sites."

Kim Young-ok, CAIO of HD Hyundai, is giving an interview to Asia Economy at the HD Hyundai headquarters in Gyeonggi-do. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo

"AI, proving return on investment is difficult"

There are many challenges to overcome. Kim cited the challenges facing AI industrialization as ▲securing high-quality data and managing its quality ▲increased dependence on specific technologies and companies ▲difficulty in proving return on investment (ROI). He said, "These are common challenges that everyone in the AI industry, not just our group, can empathize with," and added, "We deeply recognize the importance of these issues and are striving for sustainable development through systematic and proactive responses."

The technological rise of China, which shocked the world with the ‘DeepSeek Shock,’ is also a threat. Kim noted, "We cannot match China in economies of scale," pointing out that China overwhelmingly leads in both the quality and quantity of AI-related papers. He explained, "It will not be easy to close this gap in the short term," adding, "This is because China’s AI ecosystem has been established for a very long time."

Kim emphasized that a national AI strategy direction is crucial to overcoming this situation. Ultimately, having a ‘pinpoint’ focus on areas where we excel and differentiating ourselves is key. He said, "I do not agree with the notion that competition in foundational models determines national competitiveness," and stressed, "Rather, from an industrial AI perspective, building ecosystems with global AI foundation providers and intensively investing in AI research by leveraging our industrial strengths can enhance differentiation."