Ministry holds 4th M.AX regional conference in Gwangju to spread AI manufacturing

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has joined forces with the South Jeolla Province-Gwangju integrated special city and other partners to support the AI transformation — known as M.AX — of regional manufacturers.

The ministry held the 4th M.AX Regional Expansion Conference on Wednesday at the Holiday Inn Gwangju hotel on Sangmunuri-ro in Seo-gu, Gwangju.

The event was organized to accelerate M.AX adoption in the Gwangju and South Jeolla Province area, home to key industries including automobiles and shipbuilding. The ministry has been holding M.AX regional expansion conferences in major cities across the country since launching the series in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, on Sept. 11.

About 150 participants from industry, academia, research institutes and government attended the conference, where Korea Alps and Woosung Jeonggong each presented their AI transformation experiences and future plans.

Korea Alps is automating quality inspection, painting processes and logistics using AI vision inspection, robot simulation and autonomous mobile robots. Woosung Jeonggong, which has long relied on skilled workers' experience in mold manufacturing, is applying AI-based tool anomaly detection, productivity analysis and unmanned automation systems to its production processes.

The ministry introduced key projects set to be pursued in earnest next year: converting tacit manufacturing knowledge into AI solutions, building an M.AX autonomous manufacturing ecosystem that includes full-stack AI factories, and publicly distributing AI robots — including humanoid robots.

The public distribution of AI robots drew particular attention as a preemptive government investment to cultivate a domestic AI robot ecosystem at a time when such robots have yet to reach commercial deployment.

On the sidelines, one-on-one expert consultations and specialist-company matching services were also offered to about 30 regional manufacturers interested in AI transformation.

Park Tae-hyun, director general for industrial AI policy at the ministry, said the government would "spread the results of manufacturing AI adoption, focusing on industrial complexes — particularly those with clusters of companies in similar sectors — so that M.AX can expand rapidly across the country." Park added that the ministry would "continue to use regional expansion conferences and M.AX support centers so that local companies can learn from best practices and consult on AI adoption tailored to their own processes."