South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT is moving ahead in earnest with a regional manufacturing growth strategy through Physical AI manufacturing innovation.

Bae Kyung-hoon (배경훈), deputy prime minister and minister of science and ICT, visited Chonbuk National University on Monday to check results from the "Physical AI pre-verification project". He also discussed ways to spread Physical AI-based manufacturing innovation and strategies for pushing regional AX projects.

The ministry and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) promoted a pre-verification project for Physical AI-based manufacturing innovation through a 2025 supplementary budget. They have been building a system to link pre-verification results to regional AX projects.

The project built demonstration labs at Chonbuk National University for manufacturing and at KAIST for logistics to verify on-site applicability based on processes, equipment and data. It applied Physical AI-based autonomous mobile robot (AMR) logistics automation, machine tending automation and flexible production systems for multiple product types to the processes of 3 automotive demand companies.

The Chonbuk National University demonstration lab is the first platform to build an on-site verification base for Physical AI. The lab was set up to enable technology verification by function, including assembly, inspection, labelling and flexible production. It is divided into a P-Zone (Production·manufacturing) and an I-Zone (Inovation·innovation) so it can verify "experiment and production" scenarios at the same time.

It also confirmed achievements in which key indicators including productivity, quality and process efficiency improved after Physical AI technologies were applied to major processes at DH Autolead, a key automotive parts company making steering wheels, Daeseung Precision making electric brakes, and Donghae Metal making vehicle bodies.

At an on-site meeting held after the opening ceremony for the demonstration lab, company officials and experts attended and discussed implementation tasks to internalise Physical AI manufacturing innovation. Participants agreed that policy support based on verification and institutional backing are needed for Physical AI technology to take root as sustainable competitiveness on industrial sites.

Bae said the government would strengthen support and policy linkages so that technologies verified through on-site demonstration lead to process deployment and can spread broadly across industry. He added that it would fully launch Physical AI manufacturing innovation by linking regional AX with the "5 poles and 3 special" strategy.