"How Can We Create a Good City?"... Ulsan Presents Its Vision for the AI Era

Mayor Kim Doo-gyeom to Deliver Keynote at the 2025 Good City Forum
"From Industrial Capital to AI Capital... Ulsan's Great Transformation Begins"

The city of Ulsan announced that Mayor Kim Doo-gyeom has been invited as a keynote speaker to deliver an address at the "2025 Good City Forum," hosted by Sisa Journal, which will be held at 9:30 a.m. on August 25 at Ferrum Tower in Seoul.

The "Good City Forum" has been held annually since 2018 under the theme "How can we create a good city?" and marks its eighth edition this year.

This event brings together experts from the central government, local governments, and industry to present directions for the future of cities.

In his keynote, Mayor Kim will address "The Era of AI Transformation: Ulsan's Vision for the Future," presenting strategies to turn Ulsan's crises into opportunities and outlining the city's future strategies and vision for advancing from an industrial capital to an AI capital.

In particular, he will emphasize that the solutions to overcoming crises lie in businesses and jobs, and will share Ulsan's unique know-how in crisis management, such as the timely supply of industrial land, strengthening energy cost competitiveness, and providing integrated (one-stop) administrative support for investing companies.

Mayor Kim states, "For the past 60 years, Ulsan has led the Korean economy with shipbuilding, automobiles, and petrochemicals," and diagnoses, "However, in the face of global economic slowdown, the transition to eco-friendliness, and the wave of the digital revolution, our industries cannot avoid change."

He will go on to emphasize, "Integrating AI across all industries to innovate productivity, efficiency, and stability will be the solution to overcoming the industrial crisis and drawing a new growth curve."

As strategies for Ulsan's leap toward becoming an AI capital, he will present plans such as establishing an underwater data center, creating a Ulsan-style manufacturing AI innovation hub, building a smart mobility testbed, designating AI special zones, and nurturing talent. He will also announce plans to position Ulsan as an Asia-Pacific AI hub.

Concluding his keynote, Mayor Kim will stress, "We will not fear change, but become a city that leads it," adding, "Ulsan's great transformation will become the key to opening the future of Korea's industry."

Following Mayor Kim's keynote, a discussion will be held with Lee Youngtak, Vice President of SK Telecom, to assess the current state of the AI industry and continue the conversation on the future.

Ulsan's AI transformation strategy also includes securing large-scale infrastructure. Earlier in June of this year, Ulsan succeeded in attracting the nation's largest dedicated AI data center through a partnership with SK and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Ulsan especially emphasized its strengths as the optimal location for fostering the AI industry, including stable power supply, access to industrial data, sites for manufacturing AI demonstration, and swift administrative support for permits and approvals.

The Ulsan AI data center is expected to serve as a key hub for Korea's AI industry in the future, in connection with big data hubs and cloud industry clusters.