Gwangyang-si to Establish a Scale-up Demonstration Hub for Advanced Manufacturing Startups

500 Million Won in National Funding Secured for Detailed Design of the Scale-up Demonstration Smart Center

Gwangyang-si in Jeollanam-do announced that it has secured 500 million won in national funding for detailed design services for the construction of the “Scale-up Demonstration Smart Center,” a project being promoted to support scale-up (such as transition to mass production and expanded growth) of startups in advanced manufacturing and to advance technologies in the steel and secondary battery industries.

This securing of national funding marks the start in earnest of the main project, which will be pursued with a total project cost of 29 billion won (14 billion won in national funding, 10 billion won in local funding, and 5 billion won in in-kind contributions). From 2026 to 2029, over a four-year period, the city plans to build a 5,644-square-meter “shared factory-type demonstration (testing and verification) infrastructure” on the site of the Metal Materials Convergence Center of Jeonnam Technopark within the Iksin Industrial Complex in Gwangyang.

Startup Scale-up Demonstration Hub Poster. Provided by Gwangyang City

For advanced manufacturing startups, repeated testing and process improvements are essential for research and development outcomes to lead to actual commercialization. This includes process verification, prototype demonstration, and pre-mass-production testing. However, support focused only on space and equipment has limitations in fully backing these processes, so there is a need to establish a structural support system that connects testing, demonstration, and process improvement based on real manufacturing environments.

Accordingly, through the “Scale-up Demonstration Smart Center,” Gwangyang-si plans to provide a step-by-step demonstration platform that will allow startups to directly design product manufacturing process flows, equipment configurations, and working conditions in an actual manufacturing environment, objectively verify the feasibility of their technologies through small-scale trial production, and then proceed to process optimization, initial mass production, and full-scale mass production.

The center will be created as a demonstration-focused complex infrastructure that includes: office space and rental-type factories for tenant companies; testing, analysis, and prototype production rooms and a shared equipment room; and meeting rooms, sleeping rooms, and a shared materials warehouse. In addition, it plans to realize an eco-friendly, smart manufacturing environment by introducing AI-based manufacturing data utilization, smart logistics systems, industrial accident prevention design, and the concept of RE100 energy self-sufficient factories.

Another strength is that research and development (R&D) infrastructure in the steel and secondary battery sectors is clustered within a 300-meter radius around the center. Centered on the Gwangyang Bay Area Materials and Parts Knowledge Industry Center nearby, key facilities such as the Eco-friendly Lithium Secondary Battery Recycling Center, the Carbon Neutral Resource Circulation Demonstration Center, the Metal Materials Complex Forming Testbed, and the Metal Processing Heat Treatment Support Center are densely located, and this is expected to enable close linkage between technology verification and commercialization for tenant companies.

So far, through the scale-up demonstration support project, Gwangyang-si has been promoting support for four promising startups in the secondary battery materials sector with strong technological capabilities by providing scale-up space, prototype production cost support, technical consulting, and commercialization linkage, and it is also actively working to resolve difficulties faced by companies that struggle to expand their business due to regulations and infrastructure conditions.

Among the participating companies in the support project, “Green Mineral” has developed a demonstration technology that uses the biomineralization reactivity of microalgae to extract high-purity lithium carbonate from low-concentration lithium waste liquid after lithium recovery. In February 2026, it was selected for the regulatory sandbox (Ministry of Climate and Energy Environment) and will carry out demonstration under regulatory exemptions for a certain period, having been recognized for both its technological feasibility and environmental value.

“ABR” has also been selected, in December 2024, for the regulatory sandbox (Ministry of Environment) with a technology demonstration project to remanufacture cathode and anode materials without using sulfuric acid or high-temperature heat treatment employed in existing recycling processes, and is currently conducting a demonstration project.

Through this construction project, Gwangyang-si plans to accelerate the commercialization of technologies developed by advanced manufacturing startups and resolve bottlenecks at the scale-up stage, thereby creating a venture ecosystem in which companies with global competitiveness can continue to grow in the region.

An official from Gwangyang-si said, “This securing of national funding will be a turning point for Gwangyang, which is a national strategic industrial hub for steel and secondary batteries, to begin full-scale support for scale-up,” adding, “We will continue to strengthen the demonstration base so that advanced manufacturing startups can quickly establish themselves in the market and grow into strong small and medium-sized enterprises by going through technology verification and process demonstration.”

Meanwhile, along with the construction of the Scale-up Demonstration Smart Center, Gwangyang-si is also focusing on policies to expand the foundation of the venture and startup ecosystem, such as contributing to a large-scale venture fund and creating a startup park. The city plans to systematically build an environment in which promising startups in the advanced manufacturing sector can grow and settle in the region by establishing a virtuous cycle structure that connects the stages from technology startup, to scale-up, to investment linkage, and to business expansion.