The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Monday it will invest 1.29 trillion won this year through its 2026 materials and parts technology development programme. The amount is up 9.6 percent from 1.18 trillion won a year earlier. It allocated 1.17 trillion won to continuing projects and 120.6 billion won to new projects.

By sector, it will invest 470.6 billion won in advanced strategic industries. The breakdown is 145.4 billion won for semiconductors, 125.7 billion won for secondary batteries, 111.2 billion won for bio and 88.3 billion won for displays. It will invest a total of 820.4 billion won to develop materials for key industries and promising future industries, including 308.5 billion won for machinery and metals, 147.0 billion won for chemicals, 90.2 billion won for automobiles, 69.4 billion won for aerospace and 24.5 billion won for hydrogen.

The ministry said it will focus support for these new projects on high value-added transformation in the steel and petrochemicals industries, supply chain responses for advanced industries, and links between materials R&D and AI. To support high value-added transformation in the steel and petrochemicals industries, it will provide new support of 22.0 billion won for 30 projects. In steel, it will support development of high value-added special carbon steel, including highly corrosion-resistant steel pipe materials for ultra-deep drilling environments. In petrochemicals, it will support development of specialty chemical materials, including ultra-high-purity and ultra-thin polypropylene film materials for small electronic components.

For supply chain responses in advanced industries, it will provide new support of 42.75 billion won for 65 projects. It will develop ultra-high-purity copper materials for AI semiconductors, glass substrate materials and parts for physical AI devices, and refining technologies for rare metals using smelting byproducts. To promote the use of AI in materials development, it introduced AI-linked projects for the first time. Linked with the materials and parts infrastructure-building programme's virtual engineering platform, it will support the use of AI in the R&D stage. It will apply AI-based digital materials development methods, including property prediction, structure optimisation, virtual design and simulation.

The ministry plans to select organisations to carry out the new projects by April. It will select investment-linked projects by June. Related technology development details and forms can be found on the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology's R&D digital platform and the cross-ministerial Integrated R&D Support System, IRIS.

Song Hyun-joo (송현주), director general for industrial supply chain policy, said the materials, parts and equipment industry is a core industry that underpins national economic security. She said the ministry will provide uninterrupted support for R&D to add value to steel and petrochemical materials and expand AI convergence in materials R&D to advance the innovation capabilities of materials companies.