HD Korea Shipbuilding overhauls AI transformation unit in push for 'shipyard of the future'

HD Korea Shipbuilding has significantly expanded and restructured its AIX (AI Transformation) Office — a key unit reporting directly to the CEO — as the company accelerates its push to build a "shipyard of the future." The move is part of a strategy to tackle the shipbuilding industry's chronic labor shortage, driven by a shrinking population and a more highly educated workforce, through technological advancement and organizational reform.

Kim Hyung-kwan, president of HD Korea Shipbuilding, said on the sidelines of the "KR 66th Anniversary Seminar" at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul that the company had established new units under the AIX Office this year, including the SDV Center. Kim directly oversees the AIX Office, which handles AI-related core functions and software development for HD Korea Shipbuilding.

The company recently reorganized the existing AI Center and DX (Digital Transformation) Center structure within the AIX Office. The DX Center was divided into a DX Strategy Division and a DX Operations Division to sharpen expertise and execution. The ship-embedded software development function previously housed within the AI Center was also spun off into a newly created SDV (Software Defined Vessel) Center.

The restructured AIX Office will lead a two-track push to advance both products and production facilities. On the product side, the SDV Center will spearhead efforts to develop proprietary technology that controls everything from a vessel's cargo systems to its propulsion through software. Autonomous navigation will remain the domain of dedicated affiliate Avikus, but the company plans to complete the underlying intelligence of the vessels themselves — the SDV layer — in-house, widening its technological edge over competitors including China.

The DX Center will lead the production facilities track. Kim said the company is focusing first on computer modeling of production equipment — what it calls digital manufacturing — because building a unified platform connecting the entire process from design onward will take another one to two years. "We are prioritizing support for outside partner companies that face the most severe labor shortages, linking digital manufacturing-based automation equipment to government-backed projects," he said.

The sweeping AI reorganization reflects a deep-seated concern that simply bringing in more foreign workers cannot sustain the industry long-term. "No matter how many foreign workers we bring in, it's hard to keep that going for more than 10 years," Kim said. "If they return home after five to seven years without fully settling in Korea, skilled know-how ultimately never accumulates — it just gets cut off."

Simulation and platform-based process optimization are therefore the best alternative, Kim said. The impact of automation backed by rigorous simulation is already being demonstrated on the factory floor. A prime example is the world's first AI-based autonomous manufacturing facility for lugs — critical components in shipbuilding — built by HD Hyundai Mipo. "It used to be a grueling manual process requiring around 10 workers," Kim said. "After more than six months of digital simulation, we applied it in practice, and now the entire operation runs as a fully unmanned workshop with just one operator overseeing it."

HD Korea Shipbuilding has drawn up a medium-to-long-term roadmap to gradually roll out such autonomous manufacturing systems and fundamentally transform its shop-floor operations. "If we pursue automation in stages, we should be able to reduce the workforce needed on-site by at least 30 to 50 percent over the next five to ten years," Kim said, adding that the remaining roles would shift toward operators rather than manual laborers. He said the company would also apply physical AI — technology that gives machines intelligence — while treating humanoid robots as a longer-term project to be prepared for over a horizon of five or more years.