‘Establishing the ‘AI Technology Center’ to kickstart AI-based industrial site autonomy, unmanned operation & optimization
Kickstarting the industry-wide adoption of AI specialized in industrial sites such as steel, secondary battery materials, and logistics
POSCO DX (CEO Jung Duk-kyoon) announced that it plans to lead artificial intelligence transformation (AX) in addition to digital transformation (DX) by kickstarting “industrial AI” specialized for adoption at industrial sites such as steel, secondary battery materials, and logistics.
POSCO DX established the AI Technology Center this year and is integrating AI technology based on data generated from industrial sites to bring about increased productivity and more efficient and safer sites by implementing automation, unmanned operation, and optimization.
With the existing AI organization expanded and reorganized through the launch of a center, it is expected that the company will be able to effectively respond to the demand for AI technology in POSCO Group’s key business areas, such as steel manufacturing and secondary battery materials.
With the mantra of autonomy undertaken at industrial sites, POSCO DX, which has been leading the way in building smart factories at domestic production sites, is ushering in the ‘smart manufacturing 2.0 era’ with systems that operate optimally without human intervention by integrating AI technology to the three core functions of autonomy, namely cognitive, judgment, and control. As Korea’s only IT/OT convergence company, it is introducing autonomous systems through the convergence of AI and existing IT and OT technologies.
To this end, the AI Technology Center is developing AI engines in three fields, including vision intelligence, decision intelligence, and control intelligence, and is expanding its application to various fields.
Foremost, cognitive AI is a field that serves as the eyes of the field, and shows differentiated results by applying not only general 2D image-based deep learning but also 3D image-specific deep learning technology catering to heavy and chemical industry characterized by a wide range of fields to diverse fields like manufacturing and distribution logistics.
In particular, at steel mills, cognitive AI is implemented to cranes that transport tens of tons of steel materials to make them unmanned, as well as industrial robots operated in secondary battery material factories, etc., serving as the eyes and producing great results.
In addition to video data, it is also bringing about unmanned facility management by applying anomaly detection technology that analyzes in real time data collected from facilities in the field to recognize preemptively whether there are any facility abnormalities.
In the field of judgment AI, it is developing logical reasoning technology that determines the work order and allocated equipment, recognized as aspects directly related to improving factory productivity, and extracts the relationship between equipment information and abnormalities through manufacturing-specific large language model (LLM) technology.
In the field of control AI, the company provides support for automatic control by autonomously deriving the optimal operating values of equipment, in addition to efficient production activities by learning the patterns of highly skilled workers through deep learning.
POSCO DX AI Technology Center Head Yoon Il-yong said, “In lockstep with the high interest in service-based AI technologies, there is growing interest in industrial AI to solve industrial requirements such as efficiency, autonomy, and unmanned technology, and “industrial AI” is attracting attention as a field that can create real economic value.” He explained further, “With the importance of reducing both AI development and inference costs, the AI Technology Center is fully dedicated to developing and integrating proprietary AI technology specialized for tech-intensive and heavy and chemical industrial fields, including steel and secondary battery materials, so that POSCO DX can grow into an Industrial AI specialist company.”
