Invest KOREA

Korea's Real Engine of the AI Revolution: Manufacturing AI Transformation (M.AX)

*스크립트*

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Invest KOREA Summit 2025.

Thank you for being with us.

It’s a great pleasure to see you all here in Seoul.

I am Tae Hyung Kim. Commissioner of Invest KOREA.

Quick rewind to set the stage.

The summit 2023 and 2024.

2023. The Big question was:

What was the real engine of Korea’s seven-decade rise, from the ashes to world-class AI memory chips?

As the Nobel Prize Winning Economist Dr. Lucas put it, the Korean people embraced global standards, took on harder, more complex work, learned by doing on the factory floor, deepened hands-on know-how, and kept raising the bar.

The Korean people outperformed, beating expectations on the world stage, and kept opening global markets.

The Korean people made it all happen.

2024. Then the big Question again was:

How has Korea led the world in memory chips, a driving force of AI revolution for more than three decades

building one of the most resilient semiconductor supply chains on the planet?

Global partnership made it possible.

The partnership deeply rooted in trust.

Relentless focus on R&D and innovation.

An unwavering commitment to quality.

And a proven record of on-time delivery.

That is how Korea has built trust and sustained global partnership.

That same spirit of trust and excellence has spread across advanced manufacturing sectors where Korea leads on the global stage.

Across industries, our supply chain strategy has been consistent.

Diversification, resilience, decarbonization, and AI transformation.

2025. The world is different.

It’s going to be very different going forward.

Free trade, open markets, and the belief that efficiency would lift all boats, the COMPASS that has guided us, the global economy, for eight decades, is now spinning. Spinning FAST.

Supply-chains are fragmenting, getting only deeper.

The climate and energy risks are rising, getting only sharper.

The race for AI leadership and sovereignty is accelerating, getting only faster.

They all have been intensifying.

The world has become far harder to navigate.

In a world like this, what must Korea do?

Before we turn to that question, let us take a step back for a moment to think about

Korea’s forever priorities:

What would they be?

safeguarding sovereign credibility; and securing global supply chain partnership.

Why are they imperatives?

First, we are not a reserve-currency nation.

Second, we lack natural resources and energy.

That’s why, we must earn external confidence:

the confidence of investors to bring in global capital, and the confidence of suppliers to secure natural resources and energy.

That confidence is the foundation of our strategy.

The very base on which Korea delivers.

Investor confidence in Korea has been unmistakable.

For more than a decade,

Korea’s sovereign credit ratings have remained stable. Only three G7 countries rated above.

And FTSE Russell confirmed Korea’s inclusion in the World Government Bond Index.

No doubt, it’s a global vote of confidence in our macroeconomic stability and market openness.

On that foundation, we continue to execute with discipline and consistency.

Supplier confidence in Korea’s global leadership in advanced manufacturing has been unequivocal. Despite Korea’s lack of natural resources & energy, thanks to supplier confidence,

and upstream partnership.

We have become manufacturing powerhouse in advanced technology sectors. If we fall behind, however, the supplier confidence fades.

That’s why we keep investing in R&D, 5% of GDP, keep building top talent, and keep placing bold bets on next-generation technologies. Staying the course, patient investments, and consistent execution.

That’s how we turn plans into performance.

Execution, confidence, and trust are Korea’s lifelines. 

We have never forgotten that.

That is why Korea stands where it stands today.

With that foundation in place, all of this brings us to a simple question:

What is Korea’s choice and where must we focus?

Our answer: back to basics.

Focus on the core strengths where Korea’s edge is strongest. Set priorities. Invest Decisively. 

Let me introduce Korea’s game-changing initiative:

M.AX

M.AX is Manufacturing AI Transformation.

It’s about scaling advanced manufacturing with AI.

M.AX has set a bold ambition:

a 30% increase in manufacturing productivity over the next 5-year period, and a creation of over 72 billion dollars in value added over the same period.

With ambitions that big, luck is not a strategy; We must match them with right resources.

That is why

We bring in more than 1,000 participants.

Flagship manufacturers in advanced technology sectors, top-tier Universities and leading research institutes, and top-notch AI experts.

They are joining, pooling their resources, strengths, technical expertise.

There are 10 focused tracks to cover the whole industrial flow.

Government provides with funding support, infrastructure support and regulatory support leaves no stone unturned.

M.AX alliance is all hands-on-deck game changer.

On the factory floors, M.AX runs a repeat-and-improve cycle.

It sees live data from cameras and sensors, analyzes it in real time, spots what’s working and what’s not, decides the best next move, acts/executes through on-site systems,

and learns from the result.

That see-analyze-decide-act-learn cycle keeps tightening the gap between target and actual and keep improving performance step by step across the manufacturing value chain.

M.AX runs on five non-negotiables;  

You miss one, pulling off M.AX becomes a long shot.

Data: Korea’s manufacturing sector, 26.6% of GDP, provide a constant flow of deep high quality industrial data.

Robot: As of 2023, Korea is the highest robot density nation in the world.

Digital backbone: Korea has built a world-class communication networks, data centers, and cloud systems.

They enable real-time connectivity across factories, logistics hubs, and customs operations.

AI Chips: Korea, with its cutting-edge

semiconductor capabilities and ecosystem, can develop and supply the AI chips that make M. AX possible.

Talent: We bring together highly skilled engineering talent and AI experts from leading manufacturers, top-tier universities, and premier research institutes.

And form a single talent engine that can set global standards and scale them fast across industries.

You need all of them, in one place, at the same time, and all at world-class level.

Few nations on the planet have that capacity.

Korea does.

We will keep investing in backbone infrastructure,

The national networks, national electricity grid, GPU, national AI compute, and on-device AI chips that power M.AX.

From 102 pilot projects underway, early results across key sectors are already moving the needle.

Time saved, fuel costs cut, waste cut, emissions down, productivity up.

Each project contributes about 250,000 live-line data samples, and enables model experts to build standard factory-AI models at scale.

With live-line data accumulating from all active projects, Korea will develop and deploy standard Factory AI models by 2028.

Development cost of vertical AI will be 50% cheaper.

Development time will be 40% less.

So, we aim to scale the portfolio to more than 500 by 2030.

Ambition becomes baseline.

That said, what are the implications for Korea’s supply chain strategy?

M.AX brings factory floors to trading floors.

Real-time shop-floor data powers digital trade: it verifies origin, traces carbon, and secures preferential tariffs in real time.

M.AX doesn’t stop at the borders.

(Korea’s) standardized (factory) AI platforms are rolling into digital green projects across the Global South.

They raise productivity, cut emissions, and deepen critical-mineral partnerships.

M.AX fortifies economic security.

Shifting gears to Resilience,

Think of M.AX as giving every factory a brain and hands robots, sensors, equipment and connecting factory brains and the hands together.

It operates across factories and sites in 12 national advanced industrial complexes including a mega semiconductor cluster

And 10 specialized parts and equipment supplier zones, with 10 more on the way next year.

Plug that into Korea’s hyper-connected ICT and logistics infrastructure, it will connect factory, logistics, and trade in real time.

Result: leaner inventories, shorter lead times, fewer bottlenecks, smoother flows, and greater flexibility across value chains.

M.AX’s Impact on Carbon Neutrality.

87% of Korea’s greenhouse gas comes from industry and its energy use.

And Korea is a manufacturing powerhouse committed to net-zero 2050.

On the supply side, Korea is expanding carbon-free energy toward 71% by 2038.

On the demand side, M.AX helps plants to cut heat and fuel waste; make the same output with less energy and less CO2;

with less downtime and less grid stress; and automatically measure, report, and verify per-unit power and per-unit CO2, and make compliance easier with CBAM and other international rules.

M.AX with CFE turns decarbonization into an energy-security strategy.

In a nutshell,

With M.AX, Korea reconnects the dots and rewires its supply chains.

In closing,

Korean people,

Global Partnership,

M.AX-built on execution, confidence, and trust.

Korea is ready to hit the ground running 

M.AX and the whole new next-generation manufacturing value chains are at your fingertips.

What do you say?

Look! Who could ask for anything more? Invest in Korea.

Thank you so much for your answer.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you, again, for being here with us this morning.

One final thought:

Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity;

Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

Let’s choose optimism.

Let’s build M.AX together.

Thank You.