South Korea will hold its first international academic conference in the "AI for Science" field, which combines science and technology with AI.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said on Sept. 28 it will hold the AI4Sci Korea 2026 international academic conference at the Dragon City Hotel in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, through Oct. 1.

The event is jointly hosted by the Practical Artificial Intelligence Society (AI Friends), the Korea Science AI Forum and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), with support from the ministry. About 600 researchers and industry experts from 19 countries will take part and present about 220 papers.

This year's theme is "autonomous research agents and AI-based scientific discovery." The program focuses on autonomous AI agents that plan and carry out research processes on their own and AI convergence research across scientific fields.

Sessions will be held across 15 fields: AI scientists and agents, AI policy, ethics and governance, life sciences, materials and chemistry, semiconductors and displays, nuclear power and nuclear fusion, earth sciences, mathematics and computational science, mechanical engineering, energy and environment, autonomous laboratories, industrial applications, physics, and brain-computer interfaces.

Keynote speakers include Cha-Ok Seok (석차옥), a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Seoul National University, Thomas Zacharia, senior vice president at AMD, and Woo-hyung Lim (임우형), co-head of the LG AI Research Institute. Twenty-three people, including Juan de Pablo of New York University in the United States, will deliver talks. Including invited lectures, about 80 speakers from 10 countries will present their latest research results.

A policy forum will also be held to cover the government's "K-Moonshot" and trends in science and technology AI policy in each country. Linked to the "seven SEED projects," a national advanced technology strategic initiative, government-funded research institutes and companies will present cases of AI use in areas including small modular reactors (SMRs), nuclear fusion and advanced bio.

The ministry and Google DeepMind will jointly hold a special session as a follow-up to a business agreement signed in April. The National AI Research Center for Science (NAIS) will hold an AI hackathon that integrates AI agents into the entire research and development process.

The ministry will also push an industry-academia-research fusion research program centered on NAIS to connect the conference's results to joint research. It will verify feasibility through small-scale exploratory research and link strong projects to follow-up research.

Koo Hyuk-chae (구혁채), first vice minister at the ministry, said, "We will connect and open up science and technology AI resources and accelerate the achievement of the 12 K-Moonshot missions in areas such as bio and future energy based on this." He added, "We hope this conference will establish itself as a venue for exchange that connects the global science and technology community."