NC AI Joins KRW 1.413 Trillion National Physical AI Project in North Jeolla and South Gyeongsang Provinces

[Financial News] NC AI, a company specializing in physical artificial intelligence (AI), will participate in a physical AI research and development project in North Jeolla and South Gyeongsang provinces led by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA). The large-scale national project will receive a total investment of KRW 1.4131 trillion over five years through 2030. Its core objective is to develop physical AI technologies based on industries in the two provinces, with NC AI responsible for expanding AI applications across industrial sites.
According to industry sources on the 17th, the government plans to use the project to develop technologies that enable AI to learn from real-world data and connect that learning to the autonomous control of physical systems, including sensors, equipment and robots. North Jeolla Province will focus on autonomous factory technologies that intelligently connect and operate entire factories, while South Gyeongsang Province will concentrate on precision control of manufacturing processes. The government plans to develop the resulting technologies into K-AI factory packages and expand them into the global manufacturing market.
NC AI was selected for physical AI projects in both North Jeolla and South Gyeongsang provinces.
In North Jeolla Province, the company will carry out two major projects focused on digital twins and unmanned factories. The first is the development of collaborative-intelligence physical AI digital twin virtual-environment technology. Factory equipment and workspaces will be recreated in a three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment, while worker movements will be simulated to reproduce industrial sites in digital space. The project will generate AI training data in the virtual environment and support the training and validation of vision-language models (VLMs) and vision-language-action models (VLAs), laying the groundwork for learning about various situations that arise in real industrial settings through virtual spaces.
NC AI will also participate in North Jeolla Province’s project to research and develop a foundation model specialized for unmanned factory operations and physical AI SDF. The company will develop a physical AI foundation model capable of understanding and responding to diverse situations and spaces in manufacturing environments. It will also advance AI technologies that recognize static and dynamic situations and spaces within factories by using large language models (LLMs) and VLMs. This will establish the foundation for unmanned factory operations in which equipment and robots understand conditions throughout the factory and respond autonomously.
In South Gyeongsang Province, NC AI will participate in a project to develop physical intelligence action models and an integrated framework. Using industrial data from sensors and vision systems, the company will develop a world model that understands physical situations arising around equipment and in work environments and predicts changes. A large action model (LAM) will plan and control the actions of equipment and robots according to conditions at industrial sites. The resulting physical AI technology, which connects situational awareness to real-world action, will be applied to manufacturing fields such as shipbuilding welding and semiconductor back-end processing.
NC AI is a full-stack company with broad capabilities in core physical AI technologies, including digital twins, world models and robotics foundation models. It recreates real industrial sites in 3D virtual environments for AI training and validation, uses world models to understand physical situations in the real world, and employs action models and robotics foundation models to translate AI decisions into actions by actual equipment and robots.
Since early this year, NC AI has continued developing and demonstrating physical AI technologies with major companies in various industries, including Hanwha Ocean, POSCO DX and Hyundai Rotem. In shipbuilding, it is applying collaborative-robot-based autonomous welding; in defense, world-model-based virtual battlefield environments and robot learning; and in steelmaking, behavior learning for humanoid robots. Through these applications tailored to the characteristics of each industrial site, the company is expanding its business.
NC AI plans to advance AI technologies that reflect the characteristics of manufacturing environments and processes, while expanding their scope of application through validation at real industrial sites. The company aims to accelerate the AI transformation of South Korea’s manufacturing industry and contribute to strengthening its global competitiveness.
Yeonsu Lee, CEO of NC AI, said, "Strengthening manufacturing competitiveness through physical AI is an important task for the future of South Korea’s industries. Through this project, we will apply AI trained in virtual environments to real manufacturing sites, validate the technology in diverse industrial settings, and establish a foundation for leading the AI transformation of South Korea’s manufacturing industry."

[email protected] Jang Min-kwon Reporter