South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Tuesday it will press ahead with the "AI-based Specialised Administrative Service 구축 (AI-NEXT)" project to create an intelligent work environment through artificial intelligence transformation (AX).

The ministry is placing the order for the project through the Public Procurement Service and speeding up AX. It plans to complete foundational work and apply pilot services by the second half of this year, then continuously optimise and upgrade them.

The project will integrate and turn into assets documents and data dispersed across the ministry. It will apply retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) technology to build a foundation for searching and using data. Based on this, it will first develop and provide AI agents that can be used for common or specialised tasks to reduce workloads and boost productivity.

The initial AI agent application areas include licensing inspections for wireless stations, electromagnetic certification, budget and National Assembly materials, and analysis of news clipping. Basic functions such as generation and reasoning will be built as a platform system that links to and uses existing resources, including large language models (LLMs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), on the government-wide common AI foundation.

Kang Sang-wook (강상욱), director general for planning and coordination at the ministry, said AX was an unavoidable task in public administrative work as well. He said the ministry would take the lead in introducing and applying AI as the ministry overseeing AI and science and technology, build an intelligent work environment and become a model case for other ministries.