North Gyeongsang Province and Pohang city said on 11 November that they were chosen for a trade ministry project to develop an AI-run autonomous system for electric furnaces. The aim is to replace high-risk work in steel plants and raise productivity.
Hyundai Steel leads the project with the Korea Institute of Robotics and Technology Convergence and other partners. It runs from the second half of this year to December 2029 and costs 7.8 billion won, of which 6.3 billion won comes from the government.
The plan is to spot signs of equipment faults early and have robots do dangerous manual jobs on their own, to protect workers and raise output. Electric furnace steelmaking involves heat, dust and harmful gases, and output can differ with worker skill.
