Science ministry opens Daejeon Innovation Academy for AI talent

The science ministry said Wednesday it opened the Daejeon Innovation Academy, a training base for artificial intelligence and software talent meant to drive AI adoption in regional industry.

The academy will support young people in Daejeon to become practical AI-conversion talent through "CodiSai," a Korean-style AI and software innovation curriculum that runs without professors, textbooks or tuition and relies on self-directed and peer learning. The program began in Seoul in 2019, where it has trained 2,553 people with an employment rate of 83.1 percent, and was extended this year to Daejeon and South Gyeongsang Province, with the new regional hubs created so that outstanding local talent can take part in the curriculum.

Daejeon's first cohort began the five-month AI Native course in July, which trains people to apply AI in industrial settings. From October the campus will start AI All-in-One, an 18-month course for hands-on AI and software developers. Students will work through 40 practical problems and four intensive team projects, covering the design of AI agents, verification of results and the design of business models, and receive scholarships, mentoring from working AI specialists and job-search consulting.

"As we enter an era of agentic AI, which makes judgments and acts on its own, and physical AI, which combines with industrial sites, the key to a successful AI transformation is a person who can define problems in the field and innovate business with AI," said Nam Cheol-ki, director general of the ministry's software policy bureau. "We will support the Daejeon Innovation Academy so that it can establish itself as a hub for AI innovation talent representing Daejeon, the science capital," Nam said.