KAIST Startup Institute, '27th SNK Innovation Startup Symposium' held,
VC investment status and innovative startup case presentation

"Just as artificial intelligence (AI) has expanded beyond automobile manufacturing to the realm of driving, in the future AI will evolve beyond production optimization to operational optimization."

Professor Jaesik Choi, who is a professor at KAIST's AI Graduate School and the CEO of domestic XAI company INEEJI, said this while explaining the trending technologies of AI future factories at the '27th SNK Innovation and Entrepreneurship Symposium' hosted by KAIST Startup Institute on the morning of the 19th.

According to Professor Choi, 68 out of 145 technologies used in innovative global factories (global lighthouse factories) selected annually by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company are AI-related technologies. He explained, "Most of the AI ​​technologies in the global lighthouse factories are being used beyond simple manufacturing to increase energy consumption or overall equipment efficiency. The use of AI will gradually expand to increase overall efficiency in factories."

INEEJI, founded by Professor Choi, provides this kind of AI technology. It closely examines the company's processes and suggests potential needs that customers are not aware of using AI. The customers are steel, road traffic, cement, petrochemical, and home appliance manufacturing companies. It introduces AI to each company's facilities and optimizes them so that operators can operate the process efficiently while being accurate and easy.

According to Professor Choi, many companies are recently utilizing AI technology and are increasingly requesting programs like the ChatGPT plugin. They are asking companies to create programs that can improve equipment efficiency by combining a large amount of data coming from the field.

Professor Choi said, "The method of providing only a license, like ChatGPT, and allowing customers to create and use the programs they need for their work will become an inevitable trend even in factories."

In addition, there was a presentation on the investment direction of the startup market. KT Investment's Headquarters Director Kim Jin-soo said, "The recent investment market is characterized by an increase in deep tech-related investments such as AI, space, and semiconductors. The proportion of late-stage investments, such as investments in startups that have recorded remarkable performance or are about to be listed, rather than future possibilities, is increasing." He added, "Unlike bio and commerce investments, deep tech companies maintain their businesses for a long time through government projects, so it seems that VCs, which are sensitive to the recovery of investment funds, are increasing their investments."

Meanwhile, the SNK Innovation Startup Symposium was created to seek ways to innovate the Korean economy through R&D-based innovative technology startups by universities and research institutes. It is held in Seoul every month and is co-hosted by Seoul National University, KAIST, and JoongAng Ilbo.