This photo provided by SK Telecom Co. on Nov. 25, 2020, shows the company’s new SAPEON X220 artificial intelligence semiconductor.
SEOUL, July 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly four out of 10 South Korean manufacturers are currently using artificial intelligence (AI) technology, a survey showed Wednesday.
According to a survey conducted by global public cloud service operator Google Cloud of 1,154 executives at manufacturers in seven countries, only 39 percent of Korean firms replied that they use AI, the lowest among the countries surveyed.
However, 85 percent of such manufacturers said that the use of AI is increasing, about 20 percentage points higher than the average (66 percent) of the seven countries.
Among the South Korean companies using AI, 48 percent cited the improvement in employees’ work efficiency as the reason why they use AI, followed by ‘response to COVID-19 pandemic’ (41 percent) and ‘maintenance of business continuity’ (36 percent).
By the area of business activity, inventory maintenance used AI the most (47 percent), followed by supply chain management at 46 percent, supply-demand prediction at 39 percent, AI robot engineering at 37 percent and simulation and production of prototype products at 36 percent.
In response to a question asking about the main stumbling blocks that prevent the use of AI, 35 percent cited the lack of IT infrastructure, followed by negative impact on employees (25 percent) and concerns about AI technology that has yet to be verified (25 percent).
This is in contrast to the response of the other manufacturers surveyed, which cited the shortage of skilled AI workers as the main stumbling block (23 percent).
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
