KISDI (President Kwon Ho-yeol) and KT (www.kt.com, CEO Ku Hyun-mo) hosted the KT-KISDI International Conference 2021, on the topic of “Digital Transformation & the AI Ecosystem for Future Industries” at the Ruby Hall of Shilla Hotel on December 14, 2021.

At the opening ceremony held shortly before the start of the main session, KT President Park Jong-wook gave the opening address, saying, "This international conference is a forum organized jointly with KISDI to gather the wisdom of experts from all industrial sectors in South Korea and abroad with regard to the global challenge of growing their digital economies. I hope many of you here will gain some inspiration for new business ideas by absorbing the experiences and lessons learned by the companies introduced by this conference."

In his welcoming address, KISDI Director Kwon Ho-yeol said, “I hope the conference will provide an opportunity to think about and contemplate answers to the vision of the future for the industries that are being driven by digital transformation and AI ecosystems, and where changes are being superseded by innovation and evolutions.” The closing ceremony was then completed with an address by Park Yoon-gyu, Director of Information and Communication Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT.

Director Hur Seok-joon, Director of the KT Economics & Management Research Institute, was the first speaker in session 1, which was dedicated to the topic of digital transformation. In a presentation entitled 'KT's DIGIKO Strategy for Digital Korea', Director Hur talked about the strategies employed by KT to transform itself into a digital company, and provided numerous examples of services that use AI, Big Data, Cloud, and robot technologies. He said, “As all sectors of society become increasingly digitalized due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both digital transformation and the establishment of AI ecosystems have become critical factors for the survival and growth of companies, as well as issues that will shape the development of industries and countries in the future. As a reliable DX partner of digital Korea, DIGICO KT is ready to lend its assistance in making the digital ecosystem of South Korea more robust and ensuring that all Korean companies, ranging from huge conglomerates to small enterprises, receive the benefits of the digital era.”

The second presentation was given by Florian Kirchbuchner from Fraunhofer IGD, who leads the company’s Smart Living/Biometric Technology Team. He said, “In order to build a smart city, we need a system of systems that can link up legacy systems and utilize data effectively. He introduced the audience to various projects launched by the German state of Hessen in the city of Darmstadt, including an e-highway that automatically charges electric trucks traveling the highway and a simulation program which enables ordinary citizens to participate in urban planning with their smartphones.

The third presentation was given by CEO Oh Byung-joon of Siemens Digital Industry SW Korea. He talked about the Siemens factory in Amberg, a global benchmark in smart factories, and explained the new concept of a smart factory that uses digital twin technology to create a virtual factory capable of exchanging data with a real factory in real time, thereby optimizing the operation of the real factory.

The debate that followed the presentations in session 1 was moderated by Professor Lim Kyu-gun of Hanyang University’s Department of Management. Professor Lee Jeong-hoon of Yonsei University, Yeom Sun-ho from the Strategy Support Division of Korea Management Certification, Silvia Rus from the Fraunhofer Research Institute in Germany, CEO Oh Byung-joon of Siemens Digital Industry, and Director Huh Seok-joon of KT’s Economics & Management Research Institute participated in the debate, giving their thoughts on the role of government, companies, and academia in ensuring successful digital transformations and how citizens must also change and adapt to the new era.

In the second session, three people delivered presentations on the AI ecosystem. First, Research Fellow Kim Kyung-hoon gave his diagnosis of the current state of South Korea’s AI ecosystem (AI adoption status for each industry) and presented his selection of policy tasks that must be tackled to ensure the successful adoption and dissemination of AI to diverse industries.

Baptiste Perrin of GE Healthcare, the second speaker in the second session, spoke about public-private sector collaborations in France’s AI medical sector, focusing on two examples: HECAM (a liver cancer early detection project) and AI DReAM (a medical imaging technology precision enhancement project). He emphasized that both projects are funded by the French government (BPI France) and operated as a consortium type of collaborative model in which the participants are AI startups, public hospitals, and research institutes.

The final and third speaker was CEO Julien Billot of Canada’s Scale AI. He introduced Scale AI as a supercluster company whose main goals are to commercialize lab-developed AI technologies for use at manufacturing sites and to transform Canada into a major hub of the knowledge business. He went on to explain that the company provide financial support and runs various programs aimed at developing the human resources needed by research institutes and companies that are commercializing AI technology for all stages of manufacturing, such as demand forecasting, price determination, logistics, and inventory management. He also emphasized that the company has received funding worth $283 million from the Canadian federal government and Quebec Province.

The follow-up debate after session 2 was moderated by Professor Park Min-soo from Sungkyunkwan University's Department of Economics. The debate panelists were CEO Yoon Myung-chul of ZENA, Director Song Ho-cheol of DOUZONE BIZON, Professor Chang Byung-tak from Seoul National University's Department of Computer Engineering, Baptiste Perrin of GE Healthcare, and KISDI Research Fellow Kim Kyung-hoon. They debated which factors could pose the greatest obstacle to the advancement of the AI ecosystem and what actions should be taken to overcome them.

We are now standing at a crossroads in the era of digital transformation. As such, this conference presented an opportune moment for leading figures from industry, academia, research institutes, and the government to take a look at the future of the industry together and seeks ways of achieving global competitiveness. As the hosts of this event, KISDI and KT agreed to work together in the future on promoting the digital transformation of domestic industries and strengthening the AI ecosystem, which has entered the growth stage.