Yeoncheon County Selected for Gyeonggi-do AI Challenge... "Satellites and AI" to Eliminate Safety Blind Spots in Border Areas

Collaboration with Hancom InSpace Marks the Start of "Safe Yeoncheon from Space" Era
Combining Satellite and AI Technologies to Eliminate Disaster Blind Spots in Border Areas

Yeoncheon County in Gyeonggi Province is set to be reborn as a "mecca of scientific administration," combining advanced satellite technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to address chronic safety issues in border areas.

Yeoncheon County was finally selected for the '2026 Gyeonggi-do AI Challenge Program' contest project on the 20th. Provided by Yeoncheon County

On April 20, Yeoncheon County announced that it had been finally selected for the "2026 Gyeonggi-do AI Challenge Program" public contest, organized by Gyeonggi Province and the Gyeonggi Business & Science Accelerator, securing a demonstration budget of 300 million won in provincial funding. This selection is significant not only as a simple project win, but also because it marks external recognition for the "Yeoncheon-style AI demonstration strategy" that the county has meticulously prepared over the past year.

Yeoncheon County has long faced difficulties in disaster safety management due to unique geographical constraints of the border area, such as drone flight restrictions and the danger of lost landmines. To overcome these challenges, the county focused on "synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite technology," which is not limited by ground restrictions.

Teaming up with Hancom InSpace, a leader in domestic satellite technology, Yeoncheon County proposed a platform that combines satellite data and AI to detect minute ground displacements at the millimeter scale. This model, in particular, received overwhelming praise from the judges for its cost-effectiveness, as it can monitor the entire county in real time while reducing costs by more than 70% compared to traditional IoT sensor installation methods.

In response to the government's "first year of AI adoption in Korea" policy initiative, Yeoncheon County officially selected Hancom InSpace as its AI Challenge partner company through an AI expert evaluation on March 20. Subsequently, on April 3, Yeoncheon County and Hancom InSpace signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), pledging to collaborate on the AI Challenge, other government AI public contests, and the establishment of AI strategies.

Yeoncheon County and Hancom InSpace analyzed cases of localized heavy rainfall and landslides in Gapyeong in 2025 to meticulously develop a strategy for building a "preemptive response platform for ground subsidence using satellite data and AI prediction," which they officially proposed to Gyeonggi Province as a demonstration project. The platform was finally selected after being highly rated by the judges for its technical excellence and economic efficiency: it can monitor risk areas throughout Yeoncheon County while reducing costs by more than 70% compared to conventional sensor-based methods, which require more than 10 billion won and must be limited to specific regions.

With this project selection, the Yeoncheon County and Hancom InSpace consortium will receive 300 million won in funding to demonstrate the technology. The consortium will begin full-scale data collection starting in April, and plans to deploy an AI-based prediction engine and a 3D digital twin platform in August for practical use.

The demonstration project will be operated on a pilot basis until December 2026 to verify the "border area disaster prevention and safety standard model," with plans to expand to other border areas in northern Gyeonggi and nationwide through participation in government public contest projects starting next year.

A Yeoncheon County official stated, "This selection is the result of the county's urgent commitment to disaster safety and the advanced technology of our partner company. We aim to establish a standard model of scientific administration that proactively protects the lives and property of our citizens using satellites and artificial intelligence."

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