Government to deploy 30,000 smart factories by 2022
Training Master's and Ph.D. Professionals Specializing in Industrial AI
| POSTECH-Korea University participation, running for up to 5 years starting from March 2019

The Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI) announced on the 25th that it will foster specialized personnel in industrial artificial intelligence to lead future smart manufacturing innovation.

Industrial AI refers to technologies that can create new added value through the advancement of manufacturing by applying AI to the manufacturing industry and related upstream and downstream service industries.

In the meantime, the government has been working to strengthen manufacturing competitiveness through the 'Strategy for the Expansion and Advancement of Smart Factories,' including deploying 30,000 smart factories by 2022, training 100,000 specialized personnel in smart manufacturing innovation, and developing new smart factory technologies utilizing IoT and AI.

In particular, the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Center in Gyeonggi-do has served as a forward base for the advancement of smart factories and the training of high-level professionals. Since its opening in 2017, it has been visited by approximately 5,000 people from companies hoping to build smart factories and has fulfilled its role as the nation's first 'demonstration smart factory,' including the development of master's and doctoral practical training courses and its use as a practical training center.

The 'Industrial AI Specialist Training Project,' for which KETI was recently selected as the lead organization, is the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Center operated by KETI's inThis is a program that utilizes PRAF to train master's and doctoral-level professionals specialized in industrial artificial intelligence in collaboration with POSTECH and Korea University.

We plan to foster global leaders in the field of industrial artificial intelligence by establishing an industrial data education platform for problem-solving training in manufacturing sites, hosting smart manufacturing hackathons, and developing industrial AI courses.

Song Byeong-hun, the head of the KETI center and the project manager, stated, “The Industrial AI workforce training program is the nation’s first smart factory specialist training course that solves difficult challenges in manufacturing sites by sharing industrial data held by domestic and international companies with universities,” adding, “We will take the lead in elevating the competitiveness of the domestic manufacturing industry to the next level by fostering personnel who will lead the field of smart manufacturing innovation in the future.”

Meanwhile, this project is part of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's Industrial Artificial Intelligence Professional Training Project. This year, Pohang University of Science and Technology and Korea University are participating, and the program will run for up to five years starting from March 2019.