World's top AI experts gather in Korea as KAIST hosts Global AI Frontier Symposium

The event looks beyond AI research to its expanding role in industry, science and everyday life

KAIST President Bae Choong-sik delivers opening remarks at the Global AI Frontier Symposium 2026. [KAIST]

Leading scholars from global AI companies including OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity, along with researchers from world-renowned institutions such as MIT, New York University, France's Prairie Institute and Canada's Vector Institute, gathered in Korea to discuss the future of AI.

KAIST said the Global AI Frontier Symposium 2026 was held Thursday at The Westin Seoul Parnas.

Held under the theme "AI Moving Beyond Intelligence into the Real World," the symposium examined how artificial intelligence is being realized beyond laboratory settings and theoretical possibilities — in industry, science, robotics and everyday life.

About 1,000 domestic and international experts from industry, academia and research institutions, as well as government officials, attended the event, including Ryu Je-myeong, second vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT. Leading researchers and global AI company executives took the stage, with Ryu delivering the opening address. Hong Jin-bae, president of the Institute for Information and Communications Technology Planning and Evaluation, and KAIST President Bae Choong-sik gave welcoming remarks.

In the academic keynote, Leslie Pack Kaelbling, Panasonic Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, presented her vision for the future of AI research under the theme "Rational Robots."

In the industry keynote, Noam Brown, vice president of research at OpenAI, spoke on "The Meaning and Impact of Large-Scale Inference-Time Computation."

Key participants at the Global AI Frontier Symposium 2026 pose for a group photo. [KAIST]

A panel discussion that followed focused on "Industry-Academia-Government Cooperation to Secure Global AI Leadership," moderated by Kim Ki-eung, director of the National AI Research Hub. Kaelbling, Brown, Cho Kyung-hyun, co-director of the Global AI Frontier Lab, and Emily Black, professor at New York University, joined as panelists to discuss international joint research and industry-academia collaboration for strengthening global AI competitiveness.

The afternoon featured six parallel specialized sessions covering large language models and agentic AI, multimodal AI, AI for science, physical AI and embodied intelligence, AI for life, and AI trust, safety and governance.

"The National AI Research Hub is a core hub connecting Korea's AI research capabilities with the world," KAIST President Bae said. "KAIST will continue to expand international joint research and talent exchange to help Korea lead global AI innovation and governance discussions."

nbgkoo@heraldcorp.com