Kim Jae-cheol, Honorary Chairman of Dongwon Group, "Please nurture AI talent... Generous 50 billion KRW donation to KAIST"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Seon-ae] Kim Jae-cheol, Honorary Chairman of Dongwon Group, donated 50 billion KRW to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

On the 16th, Honorary Chairman Kim Jae-cheol held a pledge ceremony at the KAIST main campus in Daejeon, committing to donate 50 billion KRW from his personal funds over the next 10 years annually to nurture talent in artificial intelligence (AI). The donation was made based on Kim’s conviction that nurturing AI talent is the most urgent task for South Korea to take the lead in the AI field and advance as a developed country in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Honorary Chairman Kim stated, "Countries around the world are fiercely competing to become AI leaders," adding, "The number of AI patent applications in the U.S. and China reach 150,000 and 140,000 respectively, but we only have 40,000." He continued, "After considering ways to advance AI technology, I thought of KAIST, which has excellent faculty and foundational capabilities," and urged, "I hope KAIST becomes a frontrunner by attracting many world-renowned professors and significantly increasing the number of master's and doctoral students to develop into a global AI hub."

Honorary Chairman Kim is known to have shown exceptional interest in securing AI technology. Dongwon Industry, a Dongwon Group affiliate, donated 3 billion KRW to Hanyang University last year to establish an AI Solution Center, reflecting Kim’s proactive will. Last year, Dongwon Group formed a task force at the group level to introduce robotic process automation (RPA) projects across all affiliates and established an AI-dedicated organization directly under the CEO last month. In August this year, the group also joined AI One Team, an AI technology industry-academia-research consortium led by KT.

KAIST plans to name its AI graduate school, which is scheduled to relocate to Yangjae-ro, Seoul by 2023, as the "Kim Jae-cheol AI Graduate School" and expand its faculty with world-class research capabilities, aiming to increase the number of full-time faculty members to 40 by 2030.

The KAIST AI Graduate School, which opened last year at the Daejeon main campus as the first of its kind in Korea, has 21 faculty members including 13 full-time professors from world-renowned corporate research labs such as Google, IBM Watson, and Microsoft, with 138 master's and doctoral students currently enrolled.

Shin Sung-chul, President of KAIST, said, "Honorary Chairman Kim’s spirit and practice of noblesse oblige will serve as a catalyst for creating a new advanced culture of donation," and added, "We will strive to make KAIST a global hub for nurturing AI talent."

At KAIST, following Chairman Jang Byung-gyu of game group Krafton’s donation of 10 billion KRW in January, the highest amount by an alumnus, and Chairman Lee Soo-young of Gwangwon Industry’s donation of real estate worth 67.6 billion KRW in July, the highest donation ever, there have been three donations exceeding 10 billion KRW this year alone.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.