Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, announced Thursday it will commission a research project to establish a master plan for artificial intelligence, aiming to get ahead of rapid changes in AI technology and craft a city-wide AI strategy that residents can tangibly feel.
The study is part of a medium-to-long-term plan to build a "Suncheon-style AI city model" that makes both city administration and daily life more convenient. It will explore ways to integrate AI technology with Suncheon's distinctive ecological, garden and cultural assets.
Under the city's AI ordinance, the research is set to wrap up by November, after which officials plan to finalize an AI transformation strategy and sector-specific action items to be rolled out in phases from next year through 2029.
The city will focus particularly on areas closely tied to residents' daily lives — including administration, tourism, welfare, healthcare and public safety — to identify AI services suited to Suncheon's needs. It also plans to strengthen links between existing projects, with the goal of delivering more convenient and safer services to residents while enabling faster and more accurate government operations.
The city also intends to put in place legal and institutional guidelines and a safety management framework to guard against the downsides of AI proliferation, including privacy violations, deepfakes and the spread of false or manipulated information.
Suncheon has been an early adopter of AI across a range of fields, having already introduced intelligent administrative process automation, an AI chatbot, an AI companion robot called Lumi, an AI-powered traffic control system and a pilot AI-based emergency medical system.
Those efforts earned the city the grand prize at the Local Government AI Innovation Awards hosted by the Ministry of Interior and Safety last year, and it was also the only local government to receive an institutional commendation in the second-half 2025 digital government innovation evaluation.
"Building on this master plan, we will expand our existing achievements into a city-wide AI transformation and complete a one-of-a-kind future AI city model in South Korea — one where Suncheon's ecological and garden assets harmonize with cutting-edge technology," a city official said.
parkds@heraldcorp.com
