South Gyeongsang Provincial Government [South Gyeongsang Province]
South Gyeongsang Provincial Government [South Gyeongsang Province]

South Gyeongsang Province has begun building an AI-based disaster-response platform that will be the first in the country to use domestically developed neural processing units (NPU) and vision-language model (VLM) technology.

The province held a project launch briefing Tuesday at Seoul Square in Jung-gu, attended by officials from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the National Information Society Agency (NIA), Ulsan Metropolitan City, Korea Expressway Corporation and the project's implementing organizations. Participants reviewed the implementation plan and detailed schedule.

The project was selected through the Ministry of Science and ICT's 2026 public AI CCTV conversion program. The total budget is 3.88 billion won — comprising 3.1 billion won ($2.12 million) in national funds and 775 million won in provincial funds — with the Goodlink consortium responsible for developing and building the system.

The platform's core innovation is the introduction of NPU-based computing servers built on domestic AI semiconductors, reducing reliance on foreign GPUs while improving security and operational efficiency. Rather than replacing existing CCTV hardware, the system will link video feeds from 4,503 disaster-dedicated cameras — collected from control centers across the province's 18 cities and counties and routed to the South Gyeongsang Provincial Government — for real-time analysis through a smart integrated platform.

The project also applies VLM technology that goes beyond simple object recognition to analyze on-site conditions in natural language. This is expected to allow control center operators to more intuitively identify disaster warning signs such as flooded underpasses, river overflow risks and spreading wildfire smoke.

The province plans to cross-verify AI video analysis results against data from Korea Meteorological Administration automated weather stations (AWS), water-level gauges and tidal information, aiming to cut the false-alarm rate from over 50 percent to below 20 percent. The improvement is expected to enable more precise monitoring of heavy rain, typhoons, wildfires and other disaster scenarios.

The NPU servers running the analysis system will be installed at the information and communications network control center on the third floor of the main South Gyeongsang Provincial Government building. The province aims to complete the system by Dec. 15, conduct a two-week trial run and begin full operation on Jan. 1, 2027.

"We will be the first in the country to apply domestic AI semiconductors and advanced video analysis technology to disaster management, protecting the lives and property of our residents through proactive prevention and rapid response," said Kim Gi-yeong, director general of planning and coordination at South Gyeongsang Province.


ook967@heraldcorp.com