As the artificial intelligence (AI) industry continually develops, AI semiconductor development is expected to be among the most important sectors in technology in the near future. AI semiconductors refer to a class of semiconductors designed specifically to support artificial intelligence processing which require low power and provide high speed. Development of AI semiconductor technologies are also being considered a national strategic goal in Korea. On August 31, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that 149.8 billion KRW will be invested into the sector next year, and the Korean government is set to invest over 1 trillion KRW in the next five years with the aim of capturing 20% of the global AI semiconductor market by 2030. As Korea’s leading technological university, KAIST is expected to be a key player in helping accomplish this national objective.

KAIST is already known to excel in the core fields of AI and semiconductors, both nationally and globally. KAIST is the university with the most published semiconductor research at the International Solid-State Circuit Conference (ISSCC) over the period 2006-2022. ISSCC is considered the most prestigious conference in the field of semiconductors; more than half of its participants are large companies such as Samsung and Intel, indicating that the conference focuses on developments that have high potential for success in the industry. In 2020, KAIST was placed 6^th globally and 1^st in Asia for the number of papers regarding AI published in two of the most competitive conferences — International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) and Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). This undoubtedly demonstrates that KAIST is a global powerhouse in semiconductor and AI research.

At the intersection of these two fields, KAIST is at the center of many major breakthroughs. For instance, the world’s first AI semiconductor optimized for recommendation systems, used mainly by advertisers to show advertisements that match a particular user’s interests, was created in 2020 by Professor Minsoo Rhu’s team from the School of Electrical Engineering. The ITRC Artificial Intelligence Semiconductor System Research Center has also been conducting convergent research in this field since 2020.

KAIST is continuing to develop new ways to lead these fields, including industry-academia cooperation and focusing on training the manpower necessary for future endeavors. The establishment of the Semiconductor System Engineering Department is also expected to boost further education in AI semiconductors. These initiatives will ensure that KAIST and Korea have a bright future in key fields of technology.