IITP to Support Agentic AI Technology Development in Four Key Fields: "4.5 Billion Won per Project"

A Total of 49 Billion Won to Be Invested Over Four Years Until 2029

The government will support the development of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) technology in four key fields: healthcare, daily life, corporate environments, and industrial sites.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) announced on March 19 that they will promote the "Real-World Active Agentic AI Technology Development" project to secure core agentic AI technologies. This project is one of the key initiatives under the government’s recently announced "AI Transformation (AX) Business Consolidated Notice," which has a total budget of 423 billion won, and will invest approximately 49 billion won over four years until 2029.

In the global market, agentic AI technology aims to go beyond simple chatbots or partial automation, targeting a reduction in human intervention to below 10% and achieving a task completion rate of over 95% through multi-agent cooperation and long-term memory-based reasoning. Accordingly, the government has designated four core fields with high technological impact and public engagement, and will support the development of agentic AI technologies with the highest level of field expertise in these areas.

The four core focus areas for development are: ▲ AI for real-time analysis of medical ultrasound images; ▲ hyper-personalized emotional support AI; ▲ enterprise-wide AI integrated with corporate systems; and ▲ AI that recognizes physical conditions at manufacturing and industrial sites to perform simulations.

Selected consortiums will receive 4.5 billion won per project to develop and evaluate technologies over a one-and-a-half-year period. Subsequently, they will carry out additional projects worth 4 billion won to develop globally competitive agentic AI products. Detailed eligibility criteria and the Request for Proposal (RFP) can be found on the IITP website or the Integrated Research Support System (IRIS). An information session for industry, academia, and research institute participants interested in the project will be held at 10:00 a.m. on March 25 at the Westin Chosun Seoul Hotel, with simultaneous streaming via YouTube.

Hong Jinbae, President of the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation, said, "This is R&D aimed at securing the core brain technology that realizes the cognitive and behavioral capabilities of next-generation AI," adding, "We will strategically support the acquisition of core technological competitiveness to ensure Korea becomes a first mover in the field of agentic AI."

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