After the boom, K-defense firms race to recruit AI talent for future warfare

Hanwha Systems, Hanwha Aerospace and LIG D&A all running open AI hiring drives

Experts call for stronger public-private collaboration

'Defense AI must become an attractive field for R&D talent'

A file image related to artificial intelligence. [Getty Images Bank]

As defense powerhouses including the United States pour aggressive investment into artificial intelligence, South Korean companies are scrambling to secure AI talent.

According to industry sources, Hanwha Systems posted a job listing Wednesday for experienced hires to lead AI transformation strategy planning. The company said it intends to use the new recruits to build an AI business roadmap and pursue partnerships with external organizations.

Separately, Hanwha Systems' ICT division is running a standing AI talent pool to recruit engineers specializing in large language models and data — a dedicated listing open only to AI specialists, distinct from the company's general open-recruitment pool.

Hanwha Aerospace has also been running an open AI recruitment drive since last month, covering nine fields including naval and defense sectors. The roles call for candidates with at least five years of experience developing deployable services — among them defense-specific generative AI built on large language model systems, and AI solutions for vessels drawing on maritime navigation, maintenance and weather data.

LIG D&A has similarly been recruiting experienced AI-focused software engineers on a rolling basis since June. According to the job posting, the company is exploring ways to integrate AI into existing weapons systems for real-time target tracking and to streamline decision-making processes.

Brian Schimpf, co-founder and CEO of Anduril, speaks at a press briefing held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Jongno-gu, Seoul, in May. [Yonhap]

Within the industry, voices are growing louder that even as Korean defense firms attract global attention and push hard to secure talent, AI specialists — the key to future warfare — remain in critically short supply. Many point to a structural problem: strict security regulations and weak military-civilian collaboration make the defense sector an inherently difficult place to attract top talent.

"Hundreds of billions of won have been invested over the past several years, yet the track record of defense AI systems that have actually been fielded and put to use remains thin," said Park Sam-jun, AI program director at the Defense Agency for Technology and Quality. "The problem is not a lack of technology — it is the absence of a functioning collaboration framework and execution capacity among the military, research institutions and industry."

Warnings that South Korean defense firms are falling behind in AI have also been mounting. A report published last year by the Defense Agency for Technology and Quality found that South Korea lags advanced nations such as the United States by roughly 4.1 years in defense AI technology.

In the United States, government-industry collaboration in defense AI is well established. A decade ago, in 2015, the Pentagon set up the Defense Innovation Unit in Silicon Valley — a hub for startup innovation — to actively channel civilian technology into the military. One of the most prominent beneficiaries is Anduril, a defense AI specialist founded in 2017 that has reached a valuation of $61 billion within a decade. This year, the US defense budget for the first time carved out a separate line item for AI and autonomous systems, allocating $13.4 billion.

"As the battlefield rapidly reorganizes around AI, South Korea still depends on exports of conventional weapons," a defense industry official said. "Right now, individual companies are each fighting their own battles, but ultimately we need to create an environment where researchers can work under government support with access to data spanning the Army, Navy and Air Force — only then will AI talent come to see defense AI as an attractive field worth entering."

klee@heraldcorp.com