Artificial intelligence (AI), once confined to human imagination, is rapidly expanding into the real world. As it establishes itself as a "general-purpose technology" that shakes the entire economic structure beyond individual industrial domains, boundaries between industries are rapidly collapsing. AI has emerged as a key driver reshaping industrial structures, moving beyond a mere efficiency tool. It is becoming a decisive variable that determines corporate production methods, decision-making systems, and ultimately the landscape of national competitiveness.
Beyond generative AI, the scope of AI application is expanding in all directions, including extension into the physical world through robotics and humanoids, analysis of life data and drug design in the bio and medical fields, and prediction and operation based on virtual environments through digital twins.
Korea, which has adopted AI as a future growth engine, also stands at the center of this transformation. This is a time that requires a comprehensive response, from securing technological competitiveness to application capabilities in industrial sites, data utilization systems, discovery and growth support for promising startups in new industries such as robotics, and solutions for ethics and regulation. Whether Korea can secure leadership amid the balance between technology and humanity, industry and society, has become a key variable that will determine future competitiveness.
The Seoul Economic Daily will examine the flow of this structural transformation and seek response strategies for Korean industry through "Seoul Forum 2026." Marking its 66th anniversary, the Seoul Economic Daily will host Seoul Forum 2026 on the 27th and 28th of this month at the Shilla Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul. This year's forum will focus on the industrial paradigm shift triggered by AI under the theme "Beyond Intelligence, New Engine of Industry (New Core, New Industry)."
This year's Seoul Forum brings together global scholars and experts from various AI fields to conduct an in-depth analysis of the present and future of AI, which will lead innovation across industries and society. In particular, the forum will invite Korean scholars active worldwide as well as overseas experts closely related to Korean companies to examine the competitiveness and direction of Korean industry from a global perspective and explore ways to expand cooperation.
At the opening ceremony, key figures from the government and industry will present the direction and policy tasks for Korean industry in the era of AI transformation. In the keynote speech that follows, Michael Perry, Head of Commercial Strategy at Persona AI, will emphasize the arrival of the physical AI era and the importance of building a deployment framework at industrial sites. Perry will diagnose that the winning point of AI competition depends not on the technology itself but on how quickly it can be applied and expanded at actual sites, emphasizing that Korea has great potential to lead global standards as it possesses both industrial sites and a demand base.
Special lectures on the 28th will be delivered by Professor Su-In Lee of the University of Washington and Park Sung-hyun, CEO of Rebellions. Professor Lee, who has long researched "explainable AI (XAI)," will emphasize that as AI technology becomes more advanced, the "explanation" of the results AI produces will become another form of competitiveness, presenting the view that the core of future AI competition will shift from "performance" to "trust." CEO Park, facing a critical transition as the AI paradigm shifts from learning to inference, will diagnose the practical competitiveness of domestic neural processing units (NPUs) on the global commercialization stage and explain the future vision of sovereign AI infrastructure.
The main sessions that follow will discuss structural changes across industries in depth, centered on three main themes: reconstruction of the physical world, redesign of the blueprint of life, and recreation of reality through digital twins. Each session will share the latest technology trends and actual application cases in fields such as robotics and manufacturing, bio and medical, and virtual simulation, and seek concrete directions on how AI is changing the standards of industrial competition.
In the first session, themed "Redesign of Industry," Professor Daniel Lee of Cornell University's College of Engineering, a world authority in AI robotics, will emphasize why the development of new methodologies and tools is important for further advancement in the physical AI field. In the second session, themed "Redesign of Life," Professor Hwang Tae-hyun of Vanderbilt University in the United States and Professor Han Nam-shik of Yonsei University and the University of Cambridge will introduce a paradigm shift in research through data-based drug design and precision medicine. In the final session, themed "Redesign of Reality," Ravi Kunju, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing for the SIM division at Siemens Digital Industries Software, will introduce cases of redefining industrial operations through prediction and optimization based on virtual environments using digital twin technology.
The forum will also feature special events by field, including the Robotics Venture Forum and the "AI and Human Values" Forum.
The Robotics Venture Forum is a venue for exploring the growth direction of the domestic robot industry and discussing strategies for venture companies to attract investment and expand globally. Choi Yeon-woo, Director General of Industrial AI Policy at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, will introduce the government's policy direction to support the growth of domestic robot venture companies. Choi Hyun-hee, Head of Venture Investment Department 2 at the Korea Development Bank, will then present strategies for supporting the domestic robot industry as a policy financial institution. In addition, founders of major domestic robot venture companies such as Lion Robotics, Real World, Carbon Six, and Aidin Robotics will participate as panelists to introduce core robot-related technologies and global market expansion strategies. Key figures from domestic robot-focused venture capital firms (VCs) such as Company K Partners, Base Ventures, Future Play, and SBVA, as well as from global conglomerate POSCO DX, will also attend to discuss the potential for robot venture companies to attract investment, cooperation models with large corporations, and tasks for entering the global market.
The AI and Human Values Forum will examine ethics and responsibility arising from the spread of AI and the importance of human-centered values, seeking a balanced development direction between technology and society. By adding the agenda of human dignity and social responsibility to a forum that could otherwise lean toward a technology-centered focus, it is expected to provide an opportunity to view the direction of changes brought by AI development in a more multidimensional way. Professor Yoo Young-jin of the London School of Economics, an authority in digital management, will present directions and policy implications on how to design a "generative economy" in which human-unique characteristics can be maintained as a source of economic and social value in the AI era. Professor Shin Sang-kyu of Ewha Womans University will then discuss how we can find meaning in life in an era when traditional occupations are disappearing.
In addition, the "Korea Science and Technology Award" ceremony, a venue honoring scientists and engineers who distinguished Korea with outstanding research achievements in the first half of this year, will be held on the 27th.
