"We will swiftly establish a robust standard and certification support system that businesses can trust and utilize," said Lee Sang-hoon, president of the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation (KICOX). Lee is accelerating the Manufacturing AI Transformation (M.AX), which aims to connect data, robots, and digital twins across entire industrial complexes, moving beyond the smartification of individual factories. South Korea's industrial complexes, the heart of its manufacturing sector, are evolving into vast 'AI factories.'
South Korea has grown as a manufacturing powerhouse, with significant portions of its key industries—semiconductors, automobiles, shipbuilding, steel, machinery, electronics, and petrochemicals—concentrated in industrial complexes. This is why these complexes are crucial in the national AI transformation.
Until now, the digital transformation of manufacturing has primarily focused on smartifying individual factories, automating production equipment, and installing sensors to collect data. However, in the AI era, merely transforming one factory is insufficient. It is essential to connect businesses, data, robots, logistics, and energy. The scope is expanding from 'smartifying a single factory' to 'AI-ifying entire industrial complexes.'
M.AX involves integrating AI into actual production environments. AI analyzes production equipment data to identify potential defects and predict machine failures. Vision AI inspects products, while robots transport components. Digital twins allow for testing changes in a virtual factory before implementing them on the actual production line.
This marks a shift from AI merely generating reports to actively controlling real machines and production equipment. South Korea holds a competitive advantage in this arena, as numerous global manufacturing companies and their suppliers in semiconductors, automobiles, batteries, shipbuilding, and machinery are located within these industrial complexes. The complexes themselves can serve as vast testbeds for manufacturing AI and physical AI.
However, applying manufacturing AI on the ground is not straightforward. Each company has different equipment and data formats. Even if AI companies develop advanced technologies, applying them across various factories can be challenging, and manufacturers often question the reliability of these technologies.
This is why KICOX has launched the M.AX Standard and Certification Center. The center supports the standardization and certification of three areas essential for the spread of manufacturing AI: data, infrastructure, and solutions. The inaugural director is Lee Heon-jung, former head of the Public Data Division at the National Information Society Agency (NIA).
While standards and certifications may not seem glamorous, they are foundational for the spread of manufacturing AI. Just as a car cannot drive properly if traffic signals and rules differ from road to road, AI requires standards to connect disparate data and systems. Certification serves as a trust mechanism, enabling companies to confidently use AI technologies and services.
The M.AX Standard and Certification Center will ultimately create a common signaling system and traffic rules for the highway on which South Korea's manufacturing AI will operate.
KICOX's vision extends beyond standards and certifications. The core is the AX Demonstration Industrial Complex. This structure supports manufacturing companies that wish to adopt AI but lack the technology, funding, or expertise to test and validate AI within the industrial complex before applying it to actual production processes.
In the Manufacturing AI Open Lab, technologies will be developed and validated, and at the AX leading demonstration factories, they will be applied in real production environments. This will connect virtual factories using digital twins, robots, physical AI, and data infrastructure. While past smart factories digitized individual factories, the AX Demonstration Industrial Complex aims to create a unified AI ecosystem across the entire industrial complex.
For small and medium-sized manufacturers, the biggest question is, "Where should we implement AI in our factory to achieve tangible results?" Conversely, AI companies may understand the technology well but might not fully grasp manufacturing processes and equipment. Ultimately, on-site support is needed to bridge the gap between manufacturing and AI.
When experts visit production sites to identify potential applications for AI in defect inspection, equipment management, logistics, and energy, AI can transition from an abstract future concept to concrete projects. The success of M.AX hinges on how much actual productivity can be increased in a single factory or production line.
The next battleground is physical AI. While generative AI creates text and images, physical AI perceives and judges the real world to operate robots and machines. Manufacturing is one of the first fields where physical AI will be applied on a large scale.
AI will assess production conditions, robots will move components, vision AI will identify defective products, and autonomous mobile robots will navigate the factory. Such technologies cannot be perfected in a lab alone; they must be continuously tested and data must be accumulated in real factories.
This is where South Korea's manufacturing strengths can transform into AI competitiveness. If the nation's industrial complexes become testing grounds for AI and robots, they will serve as vast training grounds for South Korea's physical AI.
Ultimately, this could lead to export opportunities. Technologies that reduce defect rates and enhance productivity through AI, production systems where robots and humans collaborate, and standardized and validated digital twins and smart logistics can be marketed internationally.
If South Korea became a manufacturing powerhouse by exporting automobiles, semiconductors, and ships, it could now export the very 'AI-enabled manufacturing methods' themselves. Technologies and companies that have been validated through demonstration, standardization, and certification in industrial complexes will enter the global market.
In the industrial era, industrial complexes were production bases that gathered factories. In the AI era, data becomes the new infrastructure, and AI optimizes production and quality. Robots and physical AI operate on the ground, while digital twins connect actual factories with virtual ones.
Ultimately, it is not just the AX of a single factory but the AX of the entire industrial complex. Just as industrial complexes made South Korea a manufacturing powerhouse, they can now become the battleground that transforms the nation into a leader in M.AX and physical AI.
Lee Sang-hoon, president of the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation, is an expert in industrial policy who has held key positions in the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Since taking office, he has focused on the digital and low-carbon transformation of industrial complexes and enhancing the competitiveness of manufacturing companies. Recently, he has been dedicated to transforming industrial complexes nationwide into core testing grounds for manufacturing AI and physical AI through the AX Demonstration Industrial Complex, the spread of manufacturing AI, and the establishment of the M.AX standard and certification system.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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