Our nation's best artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities are coming together to tackle challenging and challenging AI research projects.

The Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Lim Hye-sook) held the launch ceremony for the 'Artificial Intelligence Innovation Hub' at the Future Convergence Technology Center at Korea University on the 2nd.

The AI Innovation Hub will be an open, virtual collaborative research lab (Virtual Open AI Innovation Hub) and serve as a central hub for AI research and talent development. It will research leading, adventurous, next-generation core technologies on topics that are difficult for individual research institutions, such as companies and universities, to conduct research on independently.

The AI Innovation Hub will be operated as a grand consortium centered around Korea University (Professor Lee Seong-hwan, Principal Investigator), with 11 universities participating as joint research institutions, including Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Kyunghee University, Kyungpook National University, Sungkyunkwan University, Hanyang University, Ewha Womans University, KAIST, POSTECH, Chonnam National University, and UNIST.

In addition, 45 domestic and foreign universities, large domestic companies such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Hyundai Motor Company, and SK Hynix, leading IT companies such as Naver and Kakao, the three major telecommunication companies (SKT, KT, and LG U+), 102 domestic companies such as small and medium-sized enterprises and ventures (Saltlux, Viewno, etc.), and 17 foreign companies such as Google and Facebook are actively participating in industry-academia cooperation such as joint research and human resource development. In addition, 7 major domestic research institutes, 11 overseas research institutes including Fraunhofer (Germany) and MPI-BC (Canada), as well as Seoul and Daejeon are participating in and cooperating with the AI Innovation Hub project.

This is a joint effort by the nation's top AI experts, who have pooled their capabilities by integrating domestic and international research networks and infrastructure with a sense of mission to dramatically enhance the nation's AI capabilities. A total of 215 organizations participated.

Professor Lee Seonghwan (Dean of Korea University's AI Graduate School), the research director of the AI Innovation Hub project, is a top scholar with a rich network of academic activities in the AI field, including being ranked first in Korea by Guide2Research as an outstanding researcher and an IEEE Fellow.

The professor said, “AI Innovation Hub projects are high-risk, challenging, and huge problems with a very high possibility of failure,” and expressed confidence that “this project, which will build an organic and efficient AI education and research system by converging AI personnel and research infrastructure scattered across the country, centered around universities, will produce the best AI synergy.”

The AI Innovation Hub will build a K-Hub data center for large-scale AI research and link public and private computing resources to secure the computing power needed for world-class research.

Minister of Science and ICT Lim Hye-sook said, “This is a meaningful day as we have launched a research cooperation system by consolidating the nation’s AI capabilities, including researchers, infrastructure, and resources,” and added, “I hope that the AI Innovation Hub will play a leading role in further enhancing AI competitiveness by becoming a base for national AI research and nurturing top-tier AI talent.”

In addition, “The capabilities and efforts of individual entities such as companies, universities, and researchers alone are not enough to compete with leading global countries, so we must develop AI industry and industry for the future of the country.”He said, “It is time to unite the power and wisdom of academia, research, the public and private sectors,” and added, “The government will not spare any effort in securing and supporting the nation’s infrastructure, financial resources, and data, and we ask for the interest and cooperation of businesses.”