Daejin University Launches Full-Scale "Defense AI and Unmanned Systems Industrialization Platform" Based in Pocheon City

Building Korea's First Practical Defense Model
Transforming Pocheon into "Korea's Binefar and Huntsville"
Presenting the Battlefield Campus Vision

Daejin University (President Jang Seokhwan) announced on the 4th that it has signed a business agreement with the Korea Defense AI Convergence Association (Chairman Park Raeho), Korea CEO Summit (Chairman Park Bongkyu), and GRC Holdings Co., Ltd. (Chairman Lim Heeyoon) to build the "RISE (Regional Innovation System of Education)–based Defense AI and Unmanned Systems Industrialization Platform" centered in Pocheon, and has entered the full-scale implementation phase.

Daejin University campus. Provided by Daejin University

This project is the first practical defense industrialization model in Korea that connects research, demonstration, force integration, procurement, and export into a single execution pipeline. It is expected to serve as a turning point for universities to move beyond being simple research institutions and to become national strategic hubs that lead tangible innovation on the battlefield.

Daejin University presented a vision to foster Pocheon as a defense AI and unmanned systems demonstration capital comparable to Binefar in Spain, a core defense city, and Huntsville in the United States, a major military logistics city, and to realize a new national defense model in which technologies are "born at the university, validated on the battlefield, and exported to the world."

A Daejin University official said, "The Russia-Ukraine war and examples of military digital upgrades in neighboring countries clearly show that the decisive factor in winning on the battlefield is not just 'the performance of weapons' but 'how quickly they are demonstrated and integrated into force,'" adding, "Korea possesses world-class technological competitiveness in areas such as AI-based battlefield management, unmanned and autonomous systems, C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence plus Surveillance and Reconnaissance), digital twin, and zero-trust security, but the execution framework that links these capabilities to actual battlefields and industrial revenues has not yet been sufficiently established."

Accordingly, Daejin University plans to redefine itself as a "Battlefield-Oriented University" and to build a demonstration-centered model in which technology does not remain in academic papers but leads to force integration, procurement, and export. In particular, based on cooperation with Pocheon City's drone-specialized zone and the military, the university intends to gradually create an international defense testing hub where foreign militaries, governments, and companies can visit in person to conduct tests and sign contracts.

This collaboration is being promoted under the slogan "Pocheon City × Daejin University = Battlefield Campus, Korea's First 'University that Understands the Battlefield'." The concept is for the university campus and the local community to function together as a single demonstration platform, thereby establishing an execution-oriented ecosystem that connects the development, testing, real-world deployment, and export of defense AI and unmanned systems technologies.

President Jang Seokhwan stated, "Daejin University will no longer remain a university focused only on research, but will leap forward as an execution-oriented university that understands the battlefield and makes tangible contributions to national security and industry," and added, "Based on the RISE project, together with Pocheon, we will complete Korea's first defense AI and unmanned systems industrialization model and create a new growth axis for K-Defense."

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