Koo Hyeok-chae, first vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, tours exhibition booths of autonomous laboratory companies at the launch ceremony of the autonomous laboratory industry-academia-research consortium, held Tuesday morning at L Tower in Seocho-gu, Seoul. [Provided by Korea Basic Science Institute]
Koo Hyeok-chae, first vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, tours exhibition booths of autonomous laboratory companies at the launch ceremony of the autonomous laboratory industry-academia-research consortium, held Tuesday morning at L Tower in Seocho-gu, Seoul. [Provided by Korea Basic Science Institute]

South Korea has launched a national industry-academia-research consortium to accelerate the spread of autonomous laboratories — facilities where AI designs experiments and robots carry them out, with no human intervention required.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Basic Science Institute held the consortium's inaugural ceremony Tuesday at L Tower in Seoul.

A Self-Driving Lab (SDL) is a next-generation research platform that links experimental equipment, robots and AI into a single system capable of automatically and repeatedly running experiments without human involvement. By conducting experiments around the clock and simultaneously exploring vast numbers of experimental conditions, SDLs can dramatically compress research timelines from years to months while improving reproducibility. The technology is spreading rapidly worldwide in fields such as materials science, biotech and pharmaceuticals, with major powers including the United States and European nations investing heavily at the national level.

Autonomous laboratories are a core pillar of the government's K-Moonshot initiative — a national project that uses AI to boost research productivity and tackle large-scale national challenges. SDLs support K-Moonshot through a closed-loop cycle of hypothesis generation, experimental verification, AI-driven analysis and re-hypothesis, fundamentally raising both the speed and quality of research.

Domestic demand for autonomous laboratories is growing quickly, particularly in advanced fields such as biotech and materials science. However, the supporting infrastructure remains underdeveloped: equipment, data and operational standards vary from institution to institution, leaving individually built SDLs unable to connect with one another and forcing each to operate in isolation.

The newly launched consortium will identify policy priorities through regular meetings and an annual conference, and will operate as a full-cycle cooperation platform spanning technology development, shared infrastructure use, data accumulation, standards and interface establishment, and demonstration and diffusion across industry, academia, research institutions and government.

Koo Hyeok-chae, first vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, poses for a commemorative photo at the launch ceremony of the autonomous laboratory industry-academia-research consortium, held Tuesday morning at L Tower in Seocho-gu, Seoul. From fourth from left: Jung Yu-sung, Seoul National University professor and consortium chair; Hwang Geum-suk, acting president of the Korea Basic Science Institute; Koo, the first vice minister; and Moon Su-bok, head of the National Strategy Research Division at the National Research Foundation of Korea. [Provided by Korea Basic Science Institute]
Koo Hyeok-chae, first vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, poses for a commemorative photo at the launch ceremony of the autonomous laboratory industry-academia-research consortium, held Tuesday morning at L Tower in Seocho-gu, Seoul. From fourth from left: Jung Yu-sung, Seoul National University professor and consortium chair; Hwang Geum-suk, acting president of the Korea Basic Science Institute; Koo, the first vice minister; and Moon Su-bok, head of the National Strategy Research Division at the National Research Foundation of Korea. [Provided by Korea Basic Science Institute]

The consortium will be chaired by Jung Yu-sung, a Seoul National University professor who is a leading figure in autonomous laboratory research, with the National AI Science Research Center and the Korea Basic Science Institute serving as co-secretariats. Its three core missions are establishing autonomous laboratory technology, platforms and standards; building a reference SDL and developing research and operational frameworks; and conducting demonstrations with client companies and driving private-sector adoption. Fifty companies — including suppliers Park Systems and HB Solution, and client firms Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and SK Hynix — along with more than 30 universities and research institutions are participating, with membership set to expand going forward.

Hwang Geum-suk, acting president of the Korea Basic Science Institute, said the institute would "draw on its experience operating and supporting research equipment to help establish common operational frameworks and standards for autonomous laboratories and to promote their adoption at research sites."

Koo Hyeok-chae, first vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, said autonomous laboratories are "core infrastructure supporting national missions such as K-Moonshot and will dramatically accelerate scientific discovery and verification." He added that the government would "provide active policy and institutional support so that government agencies, government-funded research institutes, universities and industry can move together toward the shared goal of building a domestic autonomous laboratory ecosystem."


nbgkoo@heraldcorp.com