The city of Busan is launching an initiative to build an eco-friendly product development platform that combines artificial intelligence (AI) with local waste resources. By converting discarded materials such as coffee grounds, oyster shells and cork into high-value design materials, the city aims to simultaneously drive the green transition of manufacturing and pioneer new markets.
Busan and the Busan Techno Park announced on the 27th that they are recruiting companies to participate in platform-based product development and prototype production through the 7th of next month, as the first pilot phase of the "AI-Based Recycle Design Platform Development Project."
The project is a field-centered pilot that verifies the actual commercialization potential of products by applying company product ideas to AI-based three-dimensional (3D) design technology and recycled materials. The key is to raise field usability by reflecting companies' user experience and improvement suggestions from the early stage of platform development.
Selected companies will receive support across the entire product development process, from product concept planning to design engineering, material recommendation and matching, prototype production, and testing and certification. The AI platform analyzes emotional language to generate 3D design drafts, and recommends color, material and finish (CMF) as well as recycled materials, reducing development time and trial and error.
The pilot project will utilize waste resources generated in Busan, such as coffee grounds, oyster shells and cork. These will be made into various daily-life and fashion products including cups, key rings, trays, shoe components, slippers and stools (chairs without a backrest or armrests) to verify their marketability.
"We will transform the resource utilization approach, which has centered on waste disposal, into a design-based high-value industry, and build a resource-circulating industrial ecosystem that combines local core manufacturing sectors such as footwear, fashion and household goods with AI technology," said Moon Jung-joo, head of the city's Future Design Bureau.
Starting with this pilot, the city plans to build an AI design and recycled materials database (DB), and to continuously upgrade its material recommendation and matching functions and manufacturing company linkage services. By accumulating companies' usage data, it will improve the quality of AI design generation and the accuracy of material recommendations, while also expanding the basis for collaboration between design companies and manufacturing companies.
"This is a field pilot project that combines AI technology and local waste resources to reduce companies' product development burden and raise the commercialization potential of eco-friendly products," a city official said. "We will actively support local design and manufacturing companies in pioneering new markets, so that Busan can establish itself as a leading city in the recycle design industry."
