SK Innovation's Ulsan CLX to showcase 'Dual Brain' AI-engineer system at WAVE 2026

SK Innovation's Ulsan CLX complex will participate in the Ulsan World Future Industry Expo (WAVE 2026), to be held Wednesday through Friday at the Ulsan Exhibition and Convention Center (UECO), the company announced Thursday.

The SK pavilion, which will be the largest among all exhibitors, brings together SK Group's vision for an AI value chain under the slogan "SK, Leading AX Future."

At the exhibition, SK Group will show how AI capabilities built through its semiconductor and data center businesses are being applied on actual manufacturing floors, centering on the Dual Brain concept — Ulsan CLX's guiding framework for AI transformation. Dual Brain refers to an integrated operating system that combines Brain AI, which participates directly in human decision-making, with the expertise accumulated over decades by Ulsan CLX engineers on the ground.

The SK pavilion is designed so that visitors enter SK's manufacturing AI environment through a scale model of the SK AI Data Center being built by SK Telecom and SK Broadband in Yongyeon-dong, Nam-gu, Ulsan. By far the centerpiece of the pavilion is the Dual Brain Portal, positioned at its heart.

Organized around the Dual Brain concept, the pavilion maps out the future of manufacturing AI by showing how essential functions — production optimization, predictive equipment maintenance and more — can be integrated with AI.

The Production Optimization AI zone lets visitors directly adjust operating conditions at a refinery to experience real-time optimization. The Predictive Maintenance AI zone highlights how AI can forecast failures, aging and remaining service life across the vast array of equipment at refinery and petrochemical factories, boosting overall reliability.

The SHE AI zone features an AI-powered video monitoring system that combines Ulsan CLX's in-house real-time surveillance platform, SHEild, with vision AI. The system continuously monitors and analyzes the entire 8.25 million-square-meter Ulsan CLX site, enabling rapid on-site responses guided by human judgment.

The AI Innovator zone displays AI agent projects built directly by Ulsan CLX engineers. In addition, AI startups collaborating with Ulsan CLX on manufacturing AI will also take part in the exhibition.

"This is an opportunity to show how SK's AI capabilities, built through semiconductors and data centers, are bearing fruit on the real industrial floor of refining and petrochemicals," said Hong Gwang-pyo, executive vice president of Ulsan CLX. "Through Dual Brain — which adds decades of our people's accumulated insight to AI's decision-making power — Ulsan CLX will become the flagship site leading South Korea's great manufacturing AI transformation."

Meanwhile, the 2026 Ulsan Forum will be held Wednesday at UECO. Operating under the slogan "Leading AX, Smart Life Ulsan," the forum will serve as a platform for discussing Ulsan's AI transformation strategies and policy directions.