Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-koo Foundation hosts first climate tech forum for AI era

The Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-koo Foundation announced Wednesday that it co-hosted the first session of the "Climate Tech Innovation Forum for the AI Era" with the Science and Technology Policy Institute and the National Green Technology Institute on Tuesday at Ondream Society in Myeong-dong, Seoul.

The government announced in April an "Energy Great Transition Plan" to restructure the country's power supply system around renewable energy in response to surging electricity demand driven by the spread of AI data centers and shifts in the energy security environment. It is also pursuing a Korean-style green transition strategy — known as K-GX — that aims to turn the decarbonization shift into an opportunity to foster new industries, including climate tech.

Then last month, a special bill on fostering the climate tech industry and building an innovation ecosystem was introduced in the National Assembly. The bill includes measures to institutionalize the full cycle of commercialization, covering climate value assessment, early-stage business support grants, specialized investment funds and pilot project exemptions.

Climate tech's role as a technological solution to the national challenge of energy transition in the AI era is growing, but many provisions of the bill have been delegated to subordinate legislation such as presidential decrees. The foundation said the three organizations — each with distinct strengths — joined forces to plan the forum series to address these challenges.

Under the arrangement, the Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-koo Foundation will contribute climate tech pilot and commercialization cases accumulated through its "Green Society" initiative along with field perspectives; the Science and Technology Policy Institute will conduct evidence-based research and offer policy proposals; and the National Green Technology Institute will identify specialized agenda items related to the institutionalization of climate tech, including climate value assessment and pilot exemptions. The three organizations plan to diagnose structural bottlenecks in the climate tech ecosystem and channel their findings as recommendations to legislative bodies including the National Assembly.

The forum series will run through September for a total of three sessions. Following this first session on "Strategies to Activate Public-Private Partnerships for Climate Tech Expansion in the AI Era," the second session in August will focus on "Strategies to Activate Finance and Investment for Climate Tech Innovation," and the third in September will address "Institutional and Legislative Proposals for Building a Climate Tech Innovation Ecosystem in the AI Era." The findings from each session will be published as a joint forum brief by the three organizations.

About 50 people attended Tuesday's forum, including Choi Jae-ho, secretary general of the Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-koo Foundation; Yoon Ji-woong, president of the Science and Technology Policy Institute; and Oh Dae-gyun, director of the National Green Technology Institute, as well as researchers, companies, investment institutions and policy officials in the climate tech sector.

The keynote presentations covered AI and climate tech innovation by Park Hwan-il, senior research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute; the current state of domestic and international public-private partnerships in climate tech by Hong Jong-in, professor at Chung-Ang University; and the corporate perspective on climate tech public-private partnerships in Korea by Kim Young-shin, head of external affairs at Rebellions, an AI chipmaker. Representatives from a policy research institution, academia and an AI chipmaker each examined the convergence of climate tech and AI and the current state of public-private cooperation from their respective vantage points.

The subsequent panel discussion was moderated by Song Young-il, president of the Korean Society of Climate Change, and brought together Kim Seung-tae, director at the Global Green Growth Institute, representing the international organization perspective; Kim Beom-su, deputy director at the Ministry of Climate, Environment and Energy, representing the government; Park Jae-hong, CEO of Code of Nature, representing the startup sector; and Park Cheol-ho, division head at the National Green Technology Institute, representing government-funded research institutes. The panelists discussed institutional frameworks, policies and cooperation strategies to strengthen public-private partnerships.

Jeong Moo-sung, chairman of the Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-koo Foundation, said the spread of climate tech cannot be achieved through the efforts of any single actor, and that social impact can only be realized when technology development, pilot projects, commercialization, investment and institutional reform are organically connected. "I hope today's discussions will serve as a practical starting point for building the climate tech ecosystem and for the public and private sectors to work together to solve problems," he said.

Meanwhile, the Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-koo Foundation recently held a presentation on the outcomes and strategy of the Hyundai Motor Chung Mong-koo Scholarship at Ondream Society in Myeong-dong, Seoul, sharing the results of its 15-year scholarship program and announcing new directions and operational strategies for talent development.