Cultivating domain‑specialized advanced AI talent ready for immediate industry deployment to bolster national AI competitiveness
AI full‑stack company Elice Inc. (CEO Jae Won Kim), which provides AI infrastructure, cloud services, and industry‑specific solutions, has been selected as the lead organization for the “2026 Generative AI Talent Cultivation Initiative” led by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP).
The initiative aims to cultivate master’s and PhD‑level core talent capable of leading the global generative AI market through joint research between domestic universities (including graduate schools) and generative AI companies. The program will run for four years, from April 2026 to December 2029.
As the lead organization, Elice Inc. has formed a consortium with four joint research institutions—KAIST, Seoul National University, POSTECH, and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies—and will carry out four major industry–academia joint research projects that combine the research strengths of each university.
Providing full‑stack AI capabilities including modular AI data centers, “Elice LXP,” and “Helpy”
The consortium’s core research areas focus on topics with high industrial value and commercialization potential, including: ▲building a hyper‑personalized adaptive learning ecosystem ▲developing competency analytics systems based on multimodal data ▲technologies to ensure trustworthiness in AI education ▲and developing domain‑specialized models and on‑device LLM technologies in fields such as economics, law, and culture.
In particular, Elice Inc. will provide its own advanced AI technologies and full‑stack infrastructure as the research and validation platform for participating universities. The company plans to create a highly advanced R&D environment by organically integrating the consortium’s university research systems with Elice’s CSAP‑certified modular AI data center “Elice AI PMDC,” its learning and practice platform “Elice LXP,” the industry‑specialized AI model series “Helpy,” and its MLOps pipelines that optimize AI model deployment and operations.
Hands‑on experience across the entire lifecycle of generative AI development, from data collection to deployment and operations
Through this project, more than 70 full‑time master’s and PhD students each year will gain practical experience across the entire generative AI development lifecycle—from data collection and preprocessing to model development, deployment, and operations. Starting in 2027, selected outstanding researchers will be seconded to Elice Inc. each year to conduct joint, industry‑embedded research. Elice Inc. plans to support these researchers in publishing at leading international AI conferences and filing patents for key technologies, thereby nurturing practice‑oriented advanced AI talent capable of closing the gap between research AI and product AI.
“The core of this industry–academia joint research lies in securing talent who can develop the next generation of AI technologies that industry needs immediately, such as domain‑specialized models and on‑device technologies,” said Suin Kim, Chief Research Officer (CRO) of Elice Inc. “We will spare no effort in helping top‑tier domestic talent build end‑to‑end capabilities spanning from research ML to production ML, so that they can become key leaders of our nation’s future AI competitiveness.”