South Korea's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee said its standing vice chair, Lim Moon-young (임문영), visited Jeonju and Saemangeum in North Jeolla province on April 15 to review the status of physical AI demonstrations and ways to link them with private investment.

Lim toured the manufacturing technology demonstration lab at Jeonbuk National University. In a meeting attended by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the North Jeolla provincial government, DH Autolead, Donghae Metal and Daeseung Precision, he discussed the results of the Physical AI proof-of-concept project and the direction for the main project. The main project is under review at about 1 trillion won over 5 years from 2026 and aims to build an unmanned and autonomous production system called an "AI dark factory."

At the Saemangeum Development Administration, he then heard Hyundai Motor Group’s 9 trillion won Saemangeum investment plan. Hyundai Motor Group plans to build in Saemangeum a 100-MW AI data centre, computing infrastructure with 50,000 GPUs, a robot manufacturing and parts cluster, and a 200-MW water electrolysis plant, and use them as a training base for physical AI.

Lim said, "I will support North Jeolla so it can grow into a global manufacturing innovation hub through an AX ecosystem that combines bold private investment and government policy support."

The committee plans to visit Naju in Gwangju and South Jeolla province on April 16 to review ways to advance the Honam region’s AX ecosystem.