South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT on Sunday announced the 10th case in its "K-AI model on-site expansion" series, which introduces industrial use cases of domestic AI models. It includes use cases from four companies: SK Telecom, LG AI Research, NC AI and Upstage.

SK Telecom will apply its proprietary AI foundation model at the site of Konek, an automotive parts maker. From the second half of the year, it will deploy AI agents in Konek's casting and machining processes to begin on-site verification. SKT plans to turn skilled workers' experiential knowledge into data using a large language model and use AI agents trained on it to minimise process errors.

LG AI Research and Hancom will step up cooperation in the public and private AI office market. The companies will use LG AI Research's Exaone as a core engine to apply services such as Hancom Assistant and HancomPedia to the public sector. They will also pursue development of an integrated solution that combines Hancom's AI agent capabilities with Exaone service infrastructure.

NC AI will partner with the Korea Innovation Association of Small and Medium Business to support small firms' AI transformation. It plans to lower small firms' cost burden by providing an industrial site-oriented AI adoption model that can run high-performance AI with minimal infrastructure.

Jongho Kim (김종호), a manager at NC AI's global business division, said many small businesses have recognised the need to adopt AI but have struggled due to costs and a lack of specialised staff. He said the company is supporting small firms' AI transformation so they can use AI optimised for industries and tasks without large infrastructure investments. He added he expects this will improve work productivity and contribute to helping South Korean small businesses secure independent technological competitiveness in the global market.

Okeystro Group will build generative AI services for the public sector using Upstage's AI model Solar. The customised service applies retrieval-augmented generation technology to data tailored for public institutions and will be embedded in Okeystro Group's AI solution Clarinet.

The Okeystro-Upstage consortium will also participate in the "AI specialised pilot city project" promoted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The project will invest about 610.9 billion won in the Cheonan-Asan area for 5 years from 2026 to 2030. The consortium plans to develop and verify an AI city implementation value chain including AI infrastructure, AI foundation models, edge AI, city data, digital twins and physical AI.