South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT will begin a pilot of the "National Research Facilities and Equipment Integrated Information System (ZEUS) AI search service" from July 27.

ZEUS is a cross-government service that integrates and manages information on research facilities and equipment built with national research and development (R&D) budgets and supports shared use.

The new search service moves beyond the existing keyword-based method and helps researchers find and book the equipment they need by talking with AI. Even if researchers do not know an equipment's exact name, they can enter a research purpose and the service recommends suitable equipment by considering factors such as location and availability.

Researchers have had difficulty finding suitable equipment because they had to check equipment names and owning institutions themselves, the ministry said. Calls have also been raised to improve access to shared equipment, especially for regional research institutes and universities that find it difficult to secure advanced equipment on their own.

The pilot service will run on KT's private cloud. For the official service, it plans to build high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) to increase search speed and service stability. The ministry will reflect researcher feedback and usage data during the pilot to improve search accuracy and recommendation functions, and will launch the official service in December.

Hong Soon-jung (홍순정), director general for performance evaluation policy at the ministry, said, "This service will serve as an opportunity to activate shared use of national research facilities and equipment and to create an environment in which researchers can focus on their research."