Ministry of SMEs and Startups Selects 'Top 50 R&D Achievements' of SMEs for the First Time

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 16th that it has selected the 'Top 50 Excellent SME R&D Achievements' to promote innovation and qualitative advancement in SME research and development (R&D) and to facilitate the commercialization of outstanding R&D.

Over the past five years since 2018, the Ministry selected 50 outstanding R&D achievement companies through a process including public recruitment, performance verification, and expert evaluation, targeting R&D projects successfully completed with Ministry support. These include 30 companies with excellent commercialization results such as cumulative sales from technology development projects, 6 outstanding companies that achieved global-level technology in national strategic technology fields, 7 companies that overcame technology theft and management crises to succeed in re-challenges, and 7 innovative product companies contributing to public service improvements such as industrial safety.

In the commercialization sector, H Energy developed and operates ‘Mohat,’ a solar power operation and brokerage service platform in a domestically unexplored field, achieving cumulative project sales of 97.7 billion KRW within five years of its founding. It has created remarkable economic outcomes, with sales growing fivefold over the past three years.

In the strategic technology sector, fabless startup Rebellion, which designs artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors, was selected. Rebellion succeeded in technological independence by developing ATOM, a world-class high-performance and energy-efficient AI semiconductor, in the server AI processor market previously monopolized by a few global companies. In April, it demonstrated its world-class technology by surpassing Nvidia and Qualcomm at MLPerf, a global semiconductor performance testing competition.

The Ministry plans to reward the selected excellent companies with ministerial commendations at a performance-sharing and networking event in December. Along with follow-up commercialization support such as low-interest loans and investment support for performance R&D, various incentives including participation in overseas exhibitions and preferential treatment for subsequent technology development will be provided. The Ministry will also focus on strategic promotion through planning and publicity, publishing a collection of best practices, and producing promotional videos.

Kim Woo-soon, Director of Technology Innovation Policy at the Ministry, stated, “We will continue to strengthen policy support so that technologically capable SMEs can achieve greater results, especially in national advanced strategic technology fields,” and added, “We plan to expand public consensus on the importance of SME R&D.”

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