South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on April 20 it will accept applications through May 26 for a pilot project called the "AI-specialised hospital AX-Ready" programme to support AI transformation in medical settings.

The pilot aims to implement an AX package covering the full "patient journey" from diagnosis to treatment, administrative efficiency and prognosis management. A consortium must be led by a public medical institution of at least general-hospital level, with AI solution and cloud companies required to participate. If selected, it will receive a total budget of 10 billion won over 2 years.

The ministry said it will use the project to verify a leading AI medical model and standard system before moving ahead in earnest with building a large-scale regional "AI-specialised hospital network".

Under the pilot, participants must demonstrate three mandatory packages: expanding the phased introduction and use of medical AI; building a regionally complete AI health management collaborative care platform; and AI-based hospital task automation and efficiency improvements, along with smart monitoring.

More details on the call for applications are available on the websites of the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency.

Kim Kyung-man (김경만), director general for AI policy at the ministry, said, "We will successfully build a leading model for AI-specialised hospitals and a full stack of medical AI centred on public medical institutions, and lay the groundwork for AI innovation to contribute to strengthening regional, essential and public healthcare capabilities."