Hyundai Motor (005380) and Kia (000270) have set up a dedicated training base to help small and mid-sized parts suppliers strengthen their artificial intelligence capabilities. The automakers said they aim to raise suppliers' AI competence alongside their own as the mobility industry shifts toward electric vehicles, software-defined vehicles and AI.
Hyundai Motor and Kia held an opening ceremony for the AI-focused joint training center on the 27th at the Hyundai Motor Group Global Partnership Center (GPC) in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, a training facility reserved for suppliers. Attendees included Yoon Jun-ho, executive director of the purchasing strategy division at Hyundai Motor and Kia, Lee Byung-hoon, president of the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, and executives from major suppliers.
The center is designed as a systematic AI transformation support platform, providing customized AI training centered on frontline job functions in quality, manufacturing processes and data. It aims to help parts suppliers built around internal combustion engines grow into high-value future mobility suppliers centered on AI and data. Moving beyond theory-only instruction, the programs focus on practical application, including diagnosis of each supplier's AI readiness, job-specific AI training and use of factory defect data.
Core courses include generative AI for work tasks, which automates the creation of work standards and quality-related documents; AI vision inspection, which automates quality checks on the factory floor and maximizes defect detection; and quality risk management, which covers analysis of process big data and prevention of risk factors. The programs are designed so that suppliers carry out projects in which they derive quality improvement solutions themselves through AI modeling using actual process data from their own plants, linking the work to lower defect rates and higher productivity.
Hyundai Motor and Kia will first provide hands-on AI training to about 250 employees at first- and second-tier parts suppliers this year, and plan to sharply expand the annual number of trainees and the range of eligible companies from next year to accelerate AI transformation across the entire parts supply chain. The companies also aim to broaden AI training to cover a wide range of supplier job functions, including production, research and development, purchasing and management, building an AI partnership ecosystem spanning the future mobility industry.
An official at Hyundai Motor and Kia said internalizing technology on the factory floor to achieve complete quality and breakthroughs in productivity is essential to leading the future mobility market. "With the belief that the AI competitiveness of our parts suppliers is Hyundai Motor and Kia's global competitiveness, we will continue to support suppliers' successful AI transformation and shared growth," the official said.
