The University of Science and Technology (UST) is leading the creation of advanced national R&D research outcomes through the use of cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
UST announced on June 10 that the number of students receiving its "AI Education Completion Certification" increased fivefold compared to the previous year, as the university promotes the program to strengthen students' AI-based R&D capabilities. Twenty-six students obtained certification in 2025, compared to five in 2024.
The university is accelerating AI-driven R&D achievements, with nine students producing world-class research results through exceptional AI application.
According to UST's second-semester 2025 AI Education Completion Certification review, 18 students received certification. Nine of them earned "Excellence Certification" for applying AI as a core element in generating outstanding research outcomes.
The AI Education Completion Certification program verifies and certifies AI-driven research capabilities for non-AI major students who have completed AI-related coursework.
This semester's excellence certifications involved strategic integration of cutting-edge AI technologies into major research fields, including large language models (LLMs) such as Gemini and ChatGPT, Vision Foundation Models (VFMs) trained on massive image and video datasets, and Graph-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation (GraphRAG) that captures complex relationships between information like a spider web.
The achievements went beyond using AI as a simple data analysis tool, with notable results in designing entire research problem-solving structures based on AI.
Seo Hyun-woo, a master's student in Aerospace Systems Engineering at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) School, used Vision Foundation Models to significantly improve the ability to precisely locate ships in satellite imagery using contextual information and accurately describe related situations in text. This research was presented at IGARSS 2025 (IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2025), the world's most prestigious academic conference in remote sensing and satellite imagery, receiving high recognition as a successful case of applying cutting-edge AI to next-generation satellite image analysis.
Wondesen Workneh Ejerssa, a doctoral student in Energy-Environment Convergence at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) School, published papers as first author in two SCIE journals ranked in the top 9% of JCR by applying AI technology as a core element. The student published consecutive papers in Separation and Purification Technology and Chemosphere for research on deriving optimal application standards reflecting pollutant-specific characteristics in UV water treatment processes that remove micro-pollutants.
Cha Hyun-woo, a master's student in Construction and Environmental Engineering at the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) School, applied GraphRAG technology to complex 3D Building Information Modeling (BIM) data to develop an automatic search model where AI generates appropriate queries on its own to find desired construction information without users needing to know complex search terms. He further developed a construction material recommendation system using agent-based reinforcement learning and presented related research as first author at international academic conferences including ICAT 2024.
UST is implementing mandatory AI education for all incoming students starting in 2027 to maximize AI-based R&D research capabilities across all majors and accelerate world-class research output. The university continues support through expanded common required AI courses, AI MOOC expansion, and new AI research groups bringing together faculty from both AI and non-AI fields. Through these initiatives, UST aims to develop students into AI-powered R&D talent leading AI-driven research in their respective fields.
UST President Kang Dae-im said, "AI is a next-generation core foundational technology that penetrates innovation across all academic disciplines and industries." He added, "We will continue to develop academic systems and student support so that UST students, as a national research institute university, can strategically design and utilize cutting-edge AI technology to create world-class research outcomes in their specialized research fields."