Daegu Metropolitan City Selected for Energy Technology Sharing University Project with KRW 11 Billion in Government Funding

【Financial News Daegu=Kim Jang-wook】Daegu Metropolitan City is stepping up efforts to train highly skilled master's- and doctoral-level professionals in the energy sector.
Daegu Metropolitan City announced that its AI Transformation Energy Technology Sharing University project had been finally selected as a new project under the 2026 Energy Workforce Development Program (Energy Technology Sharing University) organized by the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment.
With this selection, Daegu Metropolitan City will carry out a six-year project from September through December 2031, with a total budget of KRW 14 billion, including KRW 11 billion in government funding and KRW 3 billion in municipal funding.
KNU will serve as the lead institution, while Keimyung University, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology and Daegu Technopark will participate as partner institutions. Sixteen local energy and materials, parts and equipment companies, including L&F, AVACO and Valeo Kapec, will also join as industry partners.
Daegu Metropolitan City also plans to expand its pool of partners to include public institutions such as Korea Gas Corporation in the future, developing a talent-training system jointly operated by the public and private sectors.
The project is notable for combining AI transformation technologies with the region's three key energy areas: efficiency improvement, demand management and energy storage. It will train talent needed to shift from the existing energy-efficiency model, which focuses on replacing equipment, to data-driven intelligent management by adding AI-based demand forecasting, autonomous control and safety-diagnosis capabilities to high-efficiency materials, parts and equipment technologies.
Mayor Choo Kyung-ho emphasized, "This selection lays the foundation for Daegu to transform its energy-intensive structure into an AI-based intelligent energy industry. We will create a virtuous cycle in which universities, companies and support institutions jointly train the talent the region needs, and that talent finds jobs and settles at local companies."
The Energy Technology Sharing University is a national workforce-development project designed to train highly skilled master's- and doctoral-level professionals in the energy sector who will lead the carbon-neutral era. Its core elements are the joint development and operation of curricula by regional universities, companies and innovation institutions, as well as the sharing of technologies and infrastructure among universities and linking trained personnel to local industrial sites.
The project will be implemented along three main tracks: establishing and operating an energy technology-sharing platform; developing curricula, including credit exchanges among universities and shared online lectures; and industry-academic cooperation projects carried out jointly with companies.
Meanwhile, Daegu Metropolitan City aims to support 305 master's- and doctoral-level participants, produce 125 master's and doctoral degree holders, certify 130 qualified professionals and place 52 participants in jobs at local partner companies during the project period.
It also plans to prevent the outflow of young local talent and encourage them to settle in the region through a four-stage virtuous cycle—"demand gathering → practical training → project certification → settlement"—along with recruitment consulting and job fairs.

[email protected] Kim Jang-wook Reporter