LG held an opening ceremony for the LG AI Graduate School on Tuesday at LG Sciencepark's K Square in Magok, Seoul.

The LG AI Graduate School has been newly launched as the country's first in-house graduate school officially authorised by the education ministry to grant master's and doctoral degrees.

LG Chief Executive Koo Kwang-mo (구광모) presented new LG Gram laptops equipped with LG's AI model Exaone to incoming students, along with congratulatory letters. He stressed that the graduate school would train AI experts who place the essence of technology in people and expand human potential.

Koo opened his letter by offering congratulations and encouragement to those taking their first step on what he called an honourable and meaningful path as the first cohort in the master's and doctoral programme at the government-authorised LG AI Graduate School.

He stressed that technology should not be an end in itself, but a warm tool designed to create "people's smiles", and that it must ultimately be directed toward people. He said intense times may lie ahead, with a flood of global technologies and papers arriving day by day and many nights spent grappling with unsolved algorithms. He said every drop of sweat, day and night, would help solve difficult problems they face and later become hope for someone to stand up again, and for someone else, time to spend more with a loved family.

He also said failure is proof they are finding an answer and the most honest process toward innovation. He said he would be a strong supporter so they can freely 펼치 their imagination without yielding to failure, and so that technologies created there can meet the world.

LG plans to actively foster the LG AI Graduate School so it steadily expands its social role, boosts South Korea's AI competitiveness and broadens the innovation ecosystem.

Koo established the LG AI Research Institute in 2020 as the group's AI think tank and said at the time he would support it and lend strength so it can develop into the centre of the global AI ecosystem as top talent and partners gather to freely challenge the world's difficult problems.

The LG AI Graduate School will admit 11 master's and 6 doctoral students after selection processes for employees, including a coding test, AI modelling assessment and in-depth interviews. The new intake includes 8 employees from LG Electronics, 3 from LG Energy Solution, 2 from LG Innotek, 2 from LG Display and 2 from LG Chem.

The LG AI Graduate School said it expects to contribute to both industry and academia by enabling students from various industrial fields to combine domain knowledge built in the workplace with AI and create creative methodologies to solve industry challenges.

The programme consists of 1 year for the master's course and at least 3 years for the doctoral course, with full tuition support. For the doctoral course, publication of a paper in an SCI(E)-level journal is a mandatory graduation requirement, and graduates will receive a degree in artificial intelligence.

The faculty will consist of 24 adjunct professors who have conducted industry-specialised research at labs across the LG AI Research Institute and 1 full-time professor with AI expertise. The curriculum is designed as a practical course that uses the institute's research infrastructure and industry data to create tangible changes in the industrial field and deliver practical value beyond academic achievements.

The LG AI Graduate School offers a curriculum that covers the full cycle from developing ultra-large AI foundation models to industrial applications. It also provides hands-on research experience across industry domains where AI can be applied, including language, vision, data intelligence and materials and bio intelligence.

It plans to work with Seoul National University, KAIST, DGIST, UNIST and other science and technology institutes to hold special lectures and seminars. It aims to nurture talent that will drive practical technological innovation by breaking down the boundary between industry and academia based on exchanges with regional talent.

Attendees at the opening ceremony included inaugural dean Hong Rak Lee (이홍락), who is also co-head of the LG AI Research Institute, Education Ministry Director-General Lee Hae-sook (이해숙) for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning Policy, and Industry Ministry Director-General Park Dong-il (박동일) for Industrial Policy.

Lee said the launch of the LG AI Graduate School, where a company directly runs a degree programme, is a meaningful first step that opens a new paradigm for fostering AI talent in South Korea. He said he would do his best to provide top-level education so students can become AI leaders who drive future innovation by directly solving real challenges in industrial sites, beyond contributing through academic research.

Lee Hae-sook said the LG AI Graduate School is a new challenge showing that the ability to solve real problems in industrial sites and systematic graduate education and research functions can be organically combined. She said it will grow into an important milestone for a future higher education model and a key base that leads a qualitative leap across the national AI ecosystem.

Park Dong-il said the LG AI Graduate School will grow into a key base that accelerates the AI transformation of core industries and produces advanced AI talent to solve challenges in industrial sites. He said he hopes the talent nurtured there will grow into leaders who shape the future of South Korea's industry.