Once smoke-belching industrial complexes meet startups, they embrace AI and digital technologies

[Financial News] Once symbols of smokestack industries, industrial complexes are transforming by embracing startups’ innovative DNA and adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies. At the heart of this change is the Industrial Complex Open Innovation (Kixup, or KICXUP) program, led by Korea Industrial Complex Corporation. Through the initiative, the corporation aims to shed the image of industrial complexes as centers of traditional manufacturing and evolve them into “deep-tech test beds” for AI, advanced materials, robotics and other fields.
According to Korea Industrial Complex Corporation on the 22nd, the Industrial Complex Open Innovation program was launched in 2022 to strengthen the competitiveness of new industries through technological collaboration between companies located in industrial complexes and startups, and to develop the initiative into a globally competitive open platform.
Companies located in industrial complexes had long been focused on traditional manufacturing and faced considerable uncertainty about how to respond to the rapid pace of technological innovation brought by AI adoption. Through the program, Korea Industrial Complex Corporation matches these companies with startups, supports proof-of-concept (PoC) projects, and connects them with financial support such as loans and guarantees. Large and midsize companies can apply startups’ innovative technologies, while startups can use the help of companies in industrial complexes to validate the commercialization of their innovations and make up for their lack of market experience.
The scale of PoC projects tailored to industrial complexes grew rapidly from just two projects, with 20 million won in support at the program’s outset, to a cumulative 42 projects and 460 million won by last year. The number of participating companies also rose from 24 in 2022 to 77 last year. This year, Korea Industrial Complex Corporation is expanding PoC support to 18 projects and further developing its “regional industrial complex issue-solving PoC” initiative to address local challenges in regions at the center of the “Five Mega-Regions and Three Special Self-Governing Provinces” framework.
In particular, the innovation ecosystem is said to have become more sophisticated in 2024 through wide-ranging structural reforms, including a full-scale push for global expansion, the expansion of industrial complexes outside the capital region, and improvements to the performance management system.
Korea Industrial Complex Corporation hosted “KICXUP Global 2025,” a forum for global technology collaboration, and facilitated a total of 126 technology collaboration matches between 144 startups and 82 global demand companies and venture capital firms (VCs) from the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and South Korea.
The initiative accelerated the overseas expansion of domestic startups. In particular, manufacturing-AI company R raised 4.5 billion won in investment and signed an export contract worth $1 million. Through technology collaborations with global demand companies in Japan, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, it also recorded total exports of $1.91 million.
The “KICXUP BRIDGE Program” also expanded opportunities for promising domestic startups to enter overseas markets and collaborate with global large and midsize companies.
At the “Innovation Leaders Summit (ILS) 2024,” held in Tokyo, Japan, support was provided for five domestic startups to establish a presence in the country. Eight advance matchmaking sessions and 58 on-site meetings also revealed various opportunities for collaboration with Japanese companies.
In particular, AI solutions company A established a local subsidiary in Japan and, through a technology match with Oji Paper, secured a contract worth 3.3 million yen.
A Korea Industrial Complex Corporation official said, “The Industrial Complex Open Innovation program has produced tangible results, including establishing a global technology collaboration system and attracting investment and exports, and has created a turning point in the spread of an open innovation ecosystem centered on industrial complexes.”
Jointly planned by Financial News and Korea Industrial Complex Corporation
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