Science ministry launches agent AI development project

The science ministry said Thursday it has officially launched a research and development project to expand key technologies for agent-based artificial intelligence, selecting four private firms to lead the initiative. The government will invest 18 billion won over the next year and a half to develop products and services that can autonomously plan and execute complex tasks in the real world.

NC AI, Medical Park, Simsimi, and VIENGE were chosen as the main organizing institutions for the project. A total of 26 industry, academic, and research institutions will collaborate under these leaders to build an ecosystem for autonomous AI technology.

The selected projects cover diverse sectors: an autonomous breast ultrasound system by Medical Park that performs the entire examination cycle from image acquisition to report writing; a digital work colleague by NC AI capable of understanding corporate procedures and solving problems independently; an empathetic companion for daily life support by Simsimi; and a simulation platform by VIENGE based on multi-agent collaboration to automatically perform physical interpretation tests. The ministry stated that all final outputs must reach Technology Readiness Level 7 to function as viable prototypes in actual environments.

By the end of 2027, the government plans to evaluate the progress of these teams and select one outstanding project for an additional year of support. Lee Jin-soo, the ministry's director for AI policy planning, emphasized that securing core technologies for execution in real environments is now as critical as developing superior AI models.

Hong Jin-bae, head of the Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation Institute, added that the program would adopt a moving-target approach to help researchers keep pace with the rapidly evolving global market.