The government is taking steps to provide balanced support between future fields and key sectors, such as strengthening support for securing future basic and source technologies centered on materials, including selecting 100 future technology research laboratories and 100 national core materials research groups by 2025.

The Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Lim Hye-sook) announced that it finalized the 'Plan for Promoting Future-Leading R&D in Materials, Parts, and Equipment' at the 8th Materials, Parts, and Equipment Competitiveness Enhancement Committee held on the 17th.

Looking at the key points, first, it sets out to overcome technological challenges by focusing on 65 future-leading items.

We will select approximately 20 new future materials technology research laboratories each year that are dedicated to technology development with the goal of securing next-generation source technologies for materials, parts, and equipment centered on future leading items, and expand the number to 100 by 2025.

In addition, it supports future-oriented technological independence for 100+85 key R&D items.

To achieve technological independence and supply chain replacement for key items, 10 to 15 new National Core Materials Research Groups will be selected annually, expanding the total to 100 by 2025.

In addition, it is highly related to major policy areas such as carbon neutrality, GVC (Global Value Chain), and DX (Digital Transformation).It strengthens support for technology development.

The digital transformation of materials, parts, and equipment research is also accelerating.

Starting in 2022, we will launch a new 'Intelligent Smart Materials Research Laboratory Utilizing AI Robots' to drastically reduce the duration and cost of R&D by more than 50% compared to existing methods with minimal research personnel by utilizing intelligent robots in the new materials development process.

In addition, a new 'Nanofab Process Data Smartization Service' will be established to provide advanced process services at public nanofabs, such as the National Nanotechnology Center. This service transforms process data, previously managed at the individual equipment level, into big data and supports the application and utilization of AI.

We will continuously expand the R&D foundation for materials, parts, and equipment, including preparing to promote new projects subject to preliminary feasibility studies related to extreme materials and technology commercialization.

Since it is important to connect various government R&D results to practical corporate utilization in order to achieve technological self-reliance and leadership in materials, parts, and equipment, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy are jointly promoting the 'Nano Convergence 2030' project, which provides customized support for the technology commercialization process of original research results in materials, parts, and equipment, with the goal of launching in 2023.

To support the sustainable development of the ecosystem centered on future sectors of materials, parts, and equipment, we plan to consistently support the revitalization of the materials, parts, and equipment R&D community.

Minister Lim Hye-sook stated, “As the global competition for technological hegemony among major nations intensifies, the importance of materials, parts, and equipment technology is growing,” adding, “We plan to fully implement balanced support measures between future and core sectors starting in 2022, centered on the Ministry of Science and ICT, to secure core basic and source technologies for materials, parts, and equipment, based on related R&D projects and the inter-ministerial R&D coordination authority of the Science and Technology Innovation Headquarters.”