Vice Prime Minister Bae Kyunghoon Visits Jeonbuk National University Physical AI Demonstration Lab: "Regional Manufacturing Innovation in Full Swing"

"Launching Manufacturing Innovation Linked to the '5 Poles 3 Specializations' Strategy"

On January 26, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyunghoon visited the Physical AI Demonstration Lab at Jeonbuk National University to discuss strategies for spreading manufacturing innovation based on physical AI and advancing the large-scale research and development (R&D) initiative known as the Regional AI Transformation (AX) Project.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced that on this day, Vice Prime Minister Bae visited Jeonbuk National University to review the achievements of last year's "Physical AI Preliminary Verification Project" and to explore future directions for development with experts, including participating companies. The Physical AI Jeonbuk Region AX Project is scheduled to launch in the first half of this year and will continue until 2030. The project aims to develop a collaborative intelligence platform solution for heterogeneous robots based on physical AI.

This visit included the opening ceremony of the Jeonbuk National University Physical AI Demonstration Lab, along with a demonstration session. The achievements of the project and the implementation plan for the regional AX project were released. During the subsequent on-site discussion, participating companies and researchers reviewed the field applicability of the technology and the results of the demonstration.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency carried out a preliminary verification project for manufacturing innovation based on physical AI using last year's supplementary budget. They established the Jeonbuk National University Manufacturing Demonstration Lab and the KAIST Logistics Demonstration Lab, and pilot-tested autonomous mobile robots (AMR), logistics automation, machine tending automation, and flexible production systems for multi-variety response in the production processes of three automotive industry companies.

The Jeonbuk National University Manufacturing Demonstration Lab is the first platform equipped with a field demonstration foundation for physical AI and will serve as a hub for an open demonstration ecosystem in the future. As a result of applying physical AI technology to the main production processes of automotive parts companies such as DH Autoread, Daeseung Precision, and Donghae Metal, significant improvements were observed in productivity, quality, and process efficiency, even at the preliminary verification stage.

DH Autoread saw a 7.4% increase in production volume, a 7.4% reduction in production processing time, and an 80% reduction in manufacturing costs. Daeseung Precision achieved an 11.4% increase in production volume, a 19.4% decrease in defect rate, and a 75% reduction in manufacturing costs. Donghae Metal also achieved a 5.1% increase in production volume, a 10% reduction in processing time, and a 14.3% reduction in costs.

Vice Prime Minister Bae stated, "The Jeonbuk National University Physical AI Demonstration Lab is both the starting point and the hub for spreading manufacturing innovation based on physical AI. The government will strengthen its support to ensure that technologies verified through field demonstrations are applied to production processes and spread throughout the industry." He added, "By linking the regional AX project with the '5 Poles 3 Specializations' strategy, we will fully launch physical AI-driven manufacturing innovation."