‘Intelligent Semiconductor Forum Ceremony’ held at the Novotel Ambassador Gangnam Hotel, Gangnam-gu, Seoul in the afternoon of July 24t // Photo credits. Ministry of Science and ICT

There was an official start of the forum where experts in the industries and academia came together to discuss the future of ‘intelligent semiconductor’, which is considered to be the next growth engine of the semiconductor market in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).
Ministry of Science and ICT held the general assembly, opening ceremony, and seminars of the ‘Intelligent Semiconductor Forum’ at the Novotel Ambassador Gangnam Hotel, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on July 24th. The intelligent semiconductor is known to be the next-generation semiconductor that has a processor for computation integrated on the chip so that it can allow AI technologies to be directly applied to smart devices. The forum for the intelligent semiconductor was established for the industries and academia to discuss the current status and future of the intelligent semiconductor technology, develop human resources, and find ways for cooperation. Around 100 people from related fields of the academia and industries took part in the ceremony.
Intelligent Semiconductor Forum started from being selected as the standard forum of ICT by Ministry of Science and ICT. The forum is an association between academia and industries, which consists of 170 people and 56 companies including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, LG Electronics, fabless companies (denoting companies that design but not produce microchips), overseas companies such as Intel and Nvidia, universities, and government research centers. Technology committee, operations committee, and industry-academia cooperation committee will be individually formed within the forum for expert-level discussions.
At the inaugural general meeting held before the ceremony, Youngjoon Park, emeritus professor of SNU department of electrical and computer engineering, was elected as the forum chair. During the inaugural speech of chair Park, he said, “I’ve said to myself 20 years ago when building the industry for memory semiconductors that this project should become a model case for other governmental projects. Regarding the impact that intelligent semiconductor will make to the industry, I believe that it should become the same.”
During the keynote speech of Myoungjun Kim, president of ETRI, he said, “a market research company that wrote a report saying 5 million jobs will disappear with the advent of artificial intelligence in 2015, completely changed their perspective saying that 71 million jobs will be created in 2018. Recalling how Korea became the country that makes use of the internet the most through governmental efforts, it is time to overcome the difficulties by encouraging intelligence nationwide. 
During the following seminars under the title ‘future strategies for intelligent semiconductor technology and industry for the fourth industrial revolution’, there were presentations on the industry trends and technology of intelligent semiconductor. Seungjong Choi, vice president of LG electronics, Eunsoo Shim, executive vice president of Samsung Electronics, Kyoung Park, chief research of SK Hynix, delivered a speech on examples of artificial intelligence and market trends. Junghoon Char, managing director of Nvidia Korea, Siyeon Choi, managing director of Intel Korea, talked about the global trends.
Professor Kiyoung Choi from SNU department of electrical and computer engineering delivered a speech on intelligent semiconductor research and human resource development. He mentioned how Japan is ahead of Korea in terms of AI patents and it might hold us back in the future and asserted the importance of human resources. The government started to take actions for the intelligent semiconductor industry. Sungwan Hong, head of the ICT industry section of Ministry of Science and ICT, revealed that in 2020, budgets will be newly allocated to the projects related to intelligent semiconductors and a team for next-generation intelligent semiconductor will be formed at the beginning of the year. He said that they are also planning on providing support to many more newly established businesses.

Source: http://ee.snu.ac.kr/community/news?bm=v&bbsidx=49107
Translated by Kyungjin Lee, English Editor of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, jin11542@snu.ac.kr