Korea Plants Seeds for 7 Future Industries Including SMR and Quantum

* Editor's note: "AI PRISM" (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an AI-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six tailored news items by reader type.

1. SMR Commercialization by 2035; Bid for World No. 1 in Quantum Chips

Key summary: The government designated SMR, quantum, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, advanced bio, aerospace, and advanced supply chains as seven seed projects, and set targets including commercialization of a light-water i-SMR by 2035, development of a domestically built quantum computer by 2029, and achieving the world's No. 1 in quantum chip manufacturing capability. Moving away from the existing R&D subsidy support, the government introduced for the first time an investment-type R&D approach in which it establishes a joint public-private SPC and acquires equity. The public and private sectors will jointly invest in non-light-water SMR, nuclear fusion, quantum, and advanced bio — fields with high early risk — to pursue technology development and commercialization simultaneously. Science and engineering job-seekers should pay attention to the new research positions and corporate personnel demand in the SMR, quantum, and bio fields that these government-led large-scale projects will open up.

2. [Exclusive] Lotte Doubles Down on Physical AI; Adopts ChatGPT Company-Wide

Key summary: Lotte Group signed a supply contract with OpenAI to adopt ChatGPT company-wide, and plans to sequentially apply Claude and Gemini as well. Along with signing an AI model reseller partnership, Lotte Innovate set up a dedicated physical AI and robot unit early this year and is conducting advanced research on humanoid hand manipulation. Targeting commercialization of a platform to control heterogeneous robots by 2027, it will use the production plants and logistics warehouses of affiliates such as Lotte Wellfood and Lotte Global Logis as testing grounds. With Lotte joining Samsung Electronics, large corporations' AI transition is spreading in all directions, and for job-seekers aspiring to AI and robot roles, new hiring opportunities at large corporations' physical AI units are becoming visible.

3. Seoul National University to Build Robotics Research Building; Nvidia Joint Lab in the Same Place

Key summary: Seoul National University will firm up plans in the second half of this year to build a five- to seven-story robotics research building on the parking lot site behind the Haedong Advanced Engineering Building. Also under discussion is a plan to have the physical AI joint lab with Nvidia, whose establishment plan was disclosed last month, move in together at the research building. The Robotics Institute, selected this year for the National Research Laboratory program (NRL 2.0), will receive about 10 billion won annually for up to 10 years to strengthen its research capabilities. Joint labs with global companies serve as a path for undergraduate and graduate students to experience hands-on projects, and can be a direct opportunity for job-seekers aspiring to robotics and AI to build their portfolios.

4. 1 Trillion Won in First-Half Revenue; AIDC Becomes a Star for the 3 Telecom Carriers

Key summary: First-half AIDC-related revenue this year at the three telecom carriers — KT, SK Telecom, and LG Uplus — reached 1.0216 trillion won, up about 29% from a year earlier. SK Telecom's AIDC revenue surged 91%, KT Cloud rose 19.8%, and LG Uplus grew 30%, with all three carriers posting steep double-digit-plus growth. KT announced a target of securing 1GW of AIDC capacity by 2031, while SK Telecom established a dedicated subsidiary, SK Hyper, and is pursuing a plan to build up to 15GW. The rapid expansion of the AIDC market leads to growing personnel demand in data center design, build, and operation (DBO), cloud, and infrastructure engineering, and is read as a positive signal for job-seekers in related majors.

5. From In-House Engines to AI Characters: K-Games Captivate the World with Technology

Key summary: Pearl Abyss's "Crimson Desert" surpassed 6 million copies sold within 83 days of release, proving the competitiveness of its in-house engine "BlackSpace" on the world stage. Shift Up raised the quality of its monsters through a method of 3D-scanning clay sculptures, and Neople's "The First Berserker: Khazan" achieved full HD at 60 frames per second even on a GPU released in 2016, earning recognition for its optimization technology. Krafton is continuing its game-AI fusion experiments by piloting an AI character "CPC" system using Nvidia's SLM in PUBG. K-games' global advance is becoming a catalyst for raising demand for high-level technical jobs such as graphics programmers, technical artists, and AI game developers.

6. Solving the AI Power Crunch and Seizing Quantum, Space, and Bio: Government Also Invests to "Share Risk"

Key summary: In response to the surging power demand from AI infrastructure, the government is bundling SMR, nuclear fusion, and renewable energy as future clean energy seeds and moving to intensively foster them. By 2038, Korea's peak power demand is expected to rise to 129.3GW, with data center demand alone reaching 6.2GW, making the expansion of energy infrastructure urgent. In the quantum field, it plans to secure a domestically built 100-qubit-class QPU by 2029, and in the space field it presented step-by-step goals from launching its first lunar lander in 2030 to completing an independent low-Earth-orbit satellite communication network by 2035. As quantum and bio majors who attended the briefing called for expanded life-cycle talent support, this can be seen as a policy signal worth referencing for science and engineering job-seekers in designing long-term research careers in the field.