□ DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) has been selected for the “Top-Tier AI Emerging Researcher Support Program,” administered by the Ministry of Science and ICT and Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP).
□ Following its selection, DGIST, as the lead institution, will conduct joint research with Hanyang University ERICA from 2026 to 2031, supported by KRW 11 billion in government funding over six years to begin full-scale development of “Autonomous and Collaborative Physical AI Agent Technologies for Industrial AX (AI Transformation).” Professor Yongsoon Eun of DGIST’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science will serve as the project director.
□ Beyond technology development, the project aims to provide a long-term, stable research environment enabling early-career AI researchers with exceptional potential to develop into world-class leaders. Many outstanding early-career faculty members who have demonstrated exceptional achievements at the world’s most prestigious AI conferences (CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, etc.) will participate in the project and undertake challenging research without being constrained by short-term results.
□ The core research topic, “Physical AI,” refers to artificial intelligence that physically interacts in the real world. Unlike conventional robots that merely execute predefined commands, Physical AI is regarded as a key next-generation technology capable of independently analyzing goals, predicting future situations, and collaborating with humans or other robots in an integrated manner.
□ The joint research team has defined three core capabilities of Physical AI—“autonomous decision-making,” “future prediction,” and “complementary collaboration”—and will pursue three specific research projects, developing: (1) “goal-oriented agents” that independently assess complex tasks and formulate long-term plans, (2) “predictive adaptive agents” that predict and adapt to changes in the physical environment, and (3) “collective intelligence agents” that coordinate roles among humans and multiple robots to achieve shared goals.
□ Furthermore, extensive infrastructure support will be provided to foster the growth of early-career researchers. Demonstration research will be conducted using DGIST’s state-of-the-art supercomputing facilities and Hanyang University ERICA’s robotics testbed, with plans to link the research to the “National Robot Test Field” to be established in Daegu. Moreover, DGIST will collaborate with participating companies ROBOTIS, KT, and AeiROBOT to conduct cloud-based demonstration projects in industrial settings and expand the outcomes across the manufacturing, logistics, and service industries.
□ “The most important goal of this project is to lay the foundation for outstanding early-career researchers to devote themselves to challenging research and grow into world-renowned scholars,” stated Professor Yongsoon Eun, the principal investigator. “Centered on Physical AI, a key national priority technology, we will build an ecosystem in which academia, students, and industry can achieve shared growth and lead Korea’s industrial AX.”
□ Having been selected for the program for the second consecutive year and once again demonstrating its position as a key hub for national AI research and talent development, DGIST plans to closely link the research outcomes of this project with the Physical AI curriculum of its College of AI, which will begin admitting new students for Academic Year 2027, and be instrumental in future science and technology innovation.
