Youngjae Jang, Distinguished Professor at KAIST and CEO of DAIM Research, emphasized in his keynote address at the 14th Digital Insight Forum, hosted by the Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT), that the future competitiveness of manufacturing depends on Physical AI-powered autonomous factories, or dark factories. The forum brought together approximately 60 participants, including representatives from leading Korean AI and digital companies, ICT-related organizations, academia, and government, to discuss strategies for Manufacturing AX and Physical AI.

CEO Jang explained that AI competition is moving beyond model performance toward creating productivity and real business value in industrial environments. He noted that autonomous factories, where cell manufacturing and Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) organically connect production, logistics, and quality inspection, will become the core of manufacturing innovation, replacing traditional conveyor-based production systems. He also introduced the Korean-developed unmanned factory platform created with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT, proposing that Korea move beyond exporting products to cultivating a K-Dark Factory model that exports the intelligence of factory operations and leads the global manufacturing AI market.