The BusinessKorea report highlighted a major national initiative in which the government and a leading Korean shipbuilding group formed a partnership to develop AI-powered shipyards. The project is part of the country’s AI G3 strategy and aims to strengthen digital shipbuilding, secure next-generation maritime technology, and create a competitive lead over China. The effort builds on decades of industrial knowledge, advanced data systems, and large-scale manufacturing facilities concentrated in Ulsan.
Government Signs AI Cooperation Agreement
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with five major organizations. The agreement covers the joint development of AI technologies for the shipbuilding and maritime industry. The signing event took place at the group’s global R&D center, where senior officials and academic leaders discussed the direction of future cooperation.
The institutions plan to use Ulsan’s strong industrial ecosystem, which brings shipyards, research centers, and universities into the same region. They agreed to share data, expand training opportunities, and accelerate deployment of AI tools into day-to-day field operations.
Foundation Models for Shipbuilding Operations
The government aims to build shipbuilding-specialized AI foundation models. These models will support ship design, welding, painting, assembly, and safety management. The shipbuilding process contains many complex and high-difficulty tasks, making it one of the most challenging fields for AI development. It also generates large amounts of unstructured data that AI tools must learn to interpret.
UNIST will work with the shipyard to create a new Shipbuilding Industry AI Research Institute. The institute plans to develop multimodal and multi-agent systems that can understand text, images, and video captured in working environments. It also intends to explore intelligent design tools and production-support technologies. The long-term vision is to expand this effort into a national industrial AI hub.
Building Data Infrastructure for AI Shipyards
The report noted that the company will introduce its AI Master Agent technology into field operations. This move is expected to speed up the development of AI infrastructure, including GPUs and connected platforms.
The Ministry of Science and ICT also plans to review regulations that limit the use of production-site data. Shipyard-related video data, which is essential for training AI robots to imitate skilled human work, is often treated as sensitive information. Regulatory sandbox mechanisms may be used to enable controlled use of this material for AI training.
Certain advanced maritime technologies are categorized as national strategic assets, which restricts data sharing with external institutions. The government stated that it will examine these issues so that research partnerships can progress.
Industry–Academia Collaboration and Workforce Development
The initiative includes a plan to expand cooperation with regional universities and digitize the skills of experienced workers. The government intends to support broader collaboration through the Manufacturing AX Alliance. This alliance focuses on spreading digital transformation tools across key industries, including shipbuilding.
AI integration in shipbuilding can influence the entire production chain. The potential effects include higher work efficiency, improved safety management, automation of complex tasks, and the development of autonomous vessel technologies. Many maritime stakeholders believe rapid AI adoption is essential for strengthening global competitiveness.
Strategic Transformation Toward Future Shipyards
Executives at the event expressed strong concern about increasing competition from China, referencing industry assessments that predict a narrowing gap within the next few years. Government leaders responded by reinforcing their commitment to support the next phase of maritime innovation.
The shipbuilding group recently accelerated its internal AI strategy by creating an AIX Promotion Office. The organization is also working on the Future Advanced Shipyard (FOS) blueprint, which aims to introduce autonomous operational systems and simulation-driven verification from design to delivery by 2030. The plan targets significant gains in productivity and construction speed through a fully integrated smart shipyard model that uses digital twins and AI-enhanced workflows.
Did you subscribe to our daily Newsletter?
It’s Free — Click here to Subscribe!
Source: BusinessKorea
