Minister of SMEs and Startups Lee So-young visited smart manufacturing sites and pledged stronger support so that small and medium-sized enterprises can play an active role in South Korea's transition to artificial intelligence.
Lee attended the opening ceremony of the 2026 Smart Biz Expo at COEX in Seoul on the 13th, where she reviewed the results of the win-win smart factory program. She also visited a smart factory using AI and called on smaller firms to seek an active role in spreading the results of national projects such as physical AI.
The Smart Biz Expo is designed to showcase the manufacturing innovation achieved by small and medium-sized enterprises that have built win-win smart factories with support from the ministry and Samsung Electronics, and to offer those firms opportunities in market development and networking.
"The biggest challenge facing our economy right now is polarization," Lee said. "To narrow the gap between large corporations and smaller firms and to let the warmth of growth reach the field, large corporations must share their capital and manufacturing innovation know-how with smaller firms and build competitiveness together."
She cited win-win smart factories as a leading example of such cooperation. "In the era of the AI transition, smart factories must now move beyond production automation to manufacturing AI innovation, in which AI supports decisions on the floor and raises manufacturing competitiveness from the ground up," Lee said.
Lee then visited D-Pharmstech, a small manufacturer in Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province, to see first-hand how digital transformation and AI are being applied to actual production processes.
D-Pharmstech is an exporter that produces auto parts, semiconductor sockets and camera components based on ultra-precision mold-making technology. The company improved its processes by having AI take over sorting work, using a system trained on images of fingernail-sized optical components captured at 20 to 40 frames per second, which lifted equipment utilization rates. It is now expanding the use of AI technology further within the company.
"We will gather a wide range of views from the field to strengthen step-by-step support policies spanning digital transformation through the adoption of physical AI, and will promote the training of core personnel in manufacturing AI," Lee said. "We will prepare support policies so that the warmth and results of national strategic projects such as physical AI extend to smaller firms, allowing them to establish themselves as rightful leading players."