The government will select new research labs that will lead future software technology innovations such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing and provide support for up to eight years.

The Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Lee Jong-ho) announced the selection results for the 2024 SW Star Lab project, which supports university research labs with excellent basic and original technologies in the software (SW) field.

As a result of the 2024 SW Star Lab selection, the following labs were selected for artificial intelligence: Professor Joo Han-byeol of Seoul National University and Professor Kim Jun-mo of KAIST; for big data: Professor Shin Gi-jeong of KAIST and Professor Lee Sang-geun of Korea University; for cloud: Professor Yoo Min-soo of KAIST and Professor Kim Jung-heon of Korea University; for algorithms: Professor Oh Eun-jin of Pohang University of Science and Technology and Professor Kyung-min Bae; for applied SW: Professor Noh Jun-yong of KAIST and Professor Lim Chi-hyun of UNIST.

Launched in 2015, SW Star Lab is a project to secure world-class basic and original technologies in the field of SW core technologies and to foster master's and doctoral level talents who will lead global SW innovation. Research labs selected for this project will receive support to enable them to focus on research stably for up to 8 years (4 years + 2 years + 2 years) depending on their research performance.

A total of 48 research labs from 20 universities applied for this year's contest (competition rate 4.8:1), and Korea University, Seoul National University, Pohang University of Science and Technology, KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), and UN were selected through strict evaluation of research promotion strategies and excellence, and researchers' performance capabilities.A total of 10 research labs from 5 universities, including IST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology), were finally selected. With this new selection, a total of 49 SW Star Labs will be operated this year.

SW Star Lab has produced a total of 778 advanced human resources, including 474 master's and 218 doctoral degrees, from 2015 to 2023, and has produced excellent research results, such as publishing about 60 papers per year in SCIE-level journals and presenting about 90 papers per year at (top) academic conferences over the past three years (2021 to 2023).

In addition, by sharing an average of 60 open source SWs per year with the world through GitHub (open source repository), the status of domestic SW research has been raised.

In particular, its competitiveness and excellence are recognized worldwide, including by winning the best paper award at international academic conferences and being selected as one of the top 100 national research and development projects.

The Ministry of Science and ICT’s Software Policy Director Hwang Gyu-cheol said, “SW technology is applied to all industries and plays a vital role in having a wide-ranging impact on people’s daily lives. As a source of future national competitiveness, continuous support for SW basic and original technology research is important.” He added, “Through the SW Star Lab project, we will do our best to support the creation of an environment where university laboratories can freely conduct creative and challenging research, so that they can produce world-class results and foster outstanding talent.”