Kakao Mobility CEO Ryu Geung-son (류긍선) said, "Based on real-time road data and platform operations know-how, we are aggressively pushing to build a pipeline for commercialising E2E (End-to-End) autonomous driving." Kakao Mobility said on Feb. 12 that it held a forum titled "AI Autonomous Driving Demonstration City, Beyond Technology to Service" jointly with lawmaker Jung Joon-ho (정준호).

Ryu stressed that the company will serve as a hub in an autonomous driving ecosystem where technology, industry and policy work organically together. Kakao Mobility recently joined the 'AI Future Car M.AX Alliance' as an anchor company. It aims to advance E2E autonomous driving technology, which integrates perception, decision-making and control into a single AI model, to establish a Korea-style standard model. It has also created a 'Physical AI division' led by executive vice president Kim Jin-gyu (김진규), formerly of Waymo, to focus on internalising autonomous driving technology.

Participants at the forum included Jung, Ryu and Lim Wol-si (임월시), head of the Autonomous Driving Policy Division at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Choi Jun-won (최준원), a professor at Seoul National University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, shared global technology trends under the theme "Autonomous driving technology and industry trends and conditions for transitioning from demonstration to commercialisation." Kim Geon-woo (김건우), head of an institute, then presented policy suggestions and challenges for platform-based autonomous driving services under the theme "Direction for demonstration operations and institutional improvement from the perspective of mobility operators."

The discussion was chaired by Lee Dong-min (이동민), senior vice president of the Korean Society of Transportation. Participants including Lim, Kim Seong-jin (김성진), head of the Gwangju Future Car Mobility Promotion Agency, Kim Su-young (김수영), an executive director at Hyundai Motor Group, and Jeong Seok-won (정석원), managing director at Nvidia Korea, along with executive directors including Jeong Sang-jun (정상준), discussed ways to ensure the success of the Gwangju demonstration city.

Kim Geon-woo, head of the Future Platform Economy Research Institute, said, "In data accumulation, which is the most important factor in the development of autonomous driving technology, if Kakao Mobility's strengths are well utilised, it could lay the groundwork to quickly overcome edge-case situations."

Kim said a sustainable service operations model can be built covering a call-hailing platform, integrated control (FMS) and a safety system, based on service demonstration experience carried out with various partners at major hubs nationwide including Pangyo, Gangnam, Daegu, Jeju and Seoul. He also presented the feasibility of service implementation based on MaaS (Mobility as a Service) platform capabilities accumulated over the past 10 years.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport recently announced a plan to promote an autonomous driving demonstration city that designates all of Gwangju Metropolitan City as a pilot operation zone for autonomous vehicles. The plan is to select participating companies by April this year and deploy about 200 AI autonomous vehicles from the second half of the year.

Jung said the role of demonstration cities such as Gwangju is very important for autonomous driving technology to take root as an everyday service for citizens beyond the research lab. He stressed that the National Assembly, government and companies will act as one team and will not spare policy support in making Gwangju an advance base for the global autonomous driving industry.