Interior ministry to invest 940 billion won in AI disaster response

South Korea's interior ministry said Sunday it will invest about 940 billion won ($691 million) in 50 projects through 2030 under a government-wide plan to apply artificial intelligence across disaster and safety work.

The plan, drawn up on a recommendation from the National AI Strategy Committee earlier this year, is meant to move the country's disaster management from a response-centered system to one that prepares in advance using AI.

The first task is converting the disaster data the government already holds into a form AI can use. The interior ministry and the National Information Society Agency will turn daily safety situation reports and emergency alert messages into structured data built for AI, and will set up a basis for combining satellite imagery with data on disaster-prone areas such as natural disaster risk zones and landslide-prone sites.

Data now held separately by different agencies will be merged case by case. When heavy rain hits, AI is to analyze flood extent and damage from the interior ministry, weather conditions from the Korea Meteorological Administration, river levels from the climate ministry and 119 emergency call records from the fire agency together, and judge the risk on its own.

The ministry will also survey demand for disaster data and set out procedures for supplying it, so that public institutions and private companies can build services on it. Public websites will get an "AI-friendly web environment" as they are built or overhauled, after concerns that deep menu structures cause generative AI to collect wrong information.

The plan's main project is an AI-based service for heavy rain and typhoons, which will be piloted in three local governments selected in a public contest this year: Busan, Yeongcheon in North Gyeongsang Province and Inje County in Gangwon Province. In those areas, AI will analyze real-time weather, risk factors such as underground spaces and low-lying ground, and past damage cases to propose evacuation and road-blocking measures.

"We will quickly convert and merge the disaster management data accumulated so far into a form AI can understand, and together complete a smart disaster safety AX that is of real help to officials in the field," Interior Minister Yoon Ho-jung said, asking related agencies for their cooperation.

The work began with a project kickoff meeting on Sept. 8, and the ministry plans to verify how well the AI decision-support service works by early next year, working with the local governments.