The government will reopen applications for the project director (PD) of the AI scientist mission under the K-Moonshot project, a post that had become vacant.

The science and technology community said on July 30 that the National Research Council of Science and Technology (NST) recently held a written meeting and was reported to have tabled a recruitment plan for the K-Moonshot AI scientist PD.

It will proceed with related procedures and conduct an open recruitment process for about two weeks. After evaluation, if a PD is selected, the person is expected to begin the assignment around September. Regulations were completed this month to hire the K-Moonshot PD as an NST-affiliated national special mission researcher, and the new AI scientist PD is expected to be hired as a national special mission researcher.

Earlier, Min-hyung Lee (이민형), chief executive of Asteromorph, who had been appointed as PD for the AI scientist field of the K-Moonshot project, resigned voluntarily, citing conflicts of interest related to corporate activities. The post was to be filled for the time being by the head of NST's National Science AI Research Center, who was set to serve concurrently as the person in charge.

K-Moonshot is a mission-oriented research and development programme aimed at solving difficult problems in 12 national strategic technology fields using AI. The PD is responsible for setting mission-by-mission implementation strategies using data and AI, and for tasks including project planning, setting goals, checking progress and presenting directions for the use and dissemination of results.