The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Tuesday that its flagship AI Factory initiative has backed the AI transformation of about 170 worksites, and that an inspection of 42 early adopters found productivity had climbed an average of 30.1 percent while defect rates fell 15.5 percent.
The results were released ahead of the ministry's second-half briefing to the government, part of a drive it calls M.AX to steer traditional industry toward automation.
Individual cases were striking.
Surplus Global, which dismantles and recovers parts from used chip equipment, raised productivity by 66.7 percent after weaving AI into its sorting process, while Asan Sungwoo Hitech slashed quality-inspection time for electric-vehicle batteries by 90 percent through an unmanned manufacturing system.
In shipbuilding, HD Hyundai Samho lifted productivity by 50 percent after adopting AI-driven autonomous welding for rudder trunks, the ministry said, adding that it now aims to spread such field-tested models to smaller firms that lack the expertise to build their own.
The ministry plans to establish 500 AI factories by 2030 and expand its cluster of testbed industrial complexes to 25, alongside developing full-stack facilities that run entire production processes without human intervention.
"As gains in productivity and quality have now been confirmed on the ground, we will move quickly to spread these proven models to small and mid-sized firms and regional industrial complexes," Minister Kim Jung-kwan said, pledging support to make the country a manufacturing-AI powerhouse by 2030.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.