KAIST

Moving beyond today’s AI, which excels at solving problems similar to those encountered during training, KAIST has launched a dedicated research institute to develop foundational technologies for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that can make decisions and adapt independently when faced with unfamiliar problems and environments.

KAIST announced that it officially launched the AGI Research Institute under the KAIST AI Research Institute (AIRI) on September 18, following the completion of internal approval procedures.

The research team initially comprises 11 professors: Kim Tae-Kyun (T-K), Kim Hyunwoo, and Oh Tae-Hyun (School of Computing); Sung Minhyuk (Department of AI Computing); Shin Jinwoo and Ye Jong Chul (Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI); Kim Junmo and Chung Joon Son (Department of Electrical Engineering); Ahn Sungjin (Department of AI Computing); and Park Noseong and Yoon Sung-Eui (School of Computing). Professor Kim Tae-Kyun (T-K) of the School of Computing was appointed as the institute’s inaugural director, with plans to gradually expand the team.

The AGI Research Institute has been established with the mission of advancing the science and engineering of AGI through fundamental research and returning the benefits to society. Its core research focus is “generalization”—the ability of AI to apply learned knowledge to previously unseen tasks, environments, and data domains.

While current AI systems have achieved remarkable results through the scaling of data and computational power, they still struggle to learn and reason beyond their learnt domains. They perform well on problems similar to their training data, but their performance can decline when conditions or environments change.

The institute plans to move beyond simply scaling data and computing resources by developing foundational technologies that enable AI to reason about previously unseen problems and adapt to new environments, even with limited resources.

To this end, the institute will investigate the fundamental principles of AI through research into novel and efficient neural network architectures, learning principles, understanding the physical world, and the implementation of intelligence. It will also cultivate the next generation of research leaders.

The institute’s key research areas include:
• Efficient Foundation Models: Achieving high performance with less computation.
• Novel Knowledge Discovery (AI Meta-Scientist): Enabling AI to generate its own hypotheses and discover new knowledge.
• World Understanding: Developing world models that understand the structure and dynamics of the physical world and predict the future.
• Physical AI: Enabling embodied systems, such as robots, to perceive and act within real-world environments.
• AI Safety: Ensuring that AI remains aligned with human intent.

In Efficient Foundation Models, the institute will develop neural network architectures and learning methods that go beyond Transformers, with the aim of enabling AGI even in resource-constrained environments. In AI Meta-Scientist research, it will develop AI systems that go beyond exploring existing knowledge to generate their own hypotheses, conduct scientific research, and discover new knowledge.

By integrating these interconnected research areas into a single research institute, KAIST aims to establish itself as a global hub for AGI research.

Director Kim Tae-Kyun said, “There are limits to how far AI can advance simply by continuing to expand AI data centers.” He added, “Sustained efforts to develop foundational AI technologies that can adapt to new problems even in resource-constrained environments will be critical to staying competitive in the next generation of AI.”

The institute will pursue its research through national R&D projects supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT. Funding includes a total of KRW 10 billion over five years for the development of lightweight, low-power next-generation neural network architectures and KRW 18.75 billion over five years for AI Meta-Scientist research. The institute is also participating in a project led by LG Electronics to develop world models and robotics-based Physical AI technologies. That project has a total budget of KRW 34 billion over two years. In addition, the institute is conducting research on physically grounded intelligence.

Choi Sung-Yool, Vice President of Research at KAIST, remarked, “I expect KAIST’s outstanding AI research teams to make significant contributions to developing core next-generation AGI technologies that lead the way toward sustainable human development.”

Hong Jin-bae, President of IITP, stated, “As creative ideas and challenging research drive AI technological innovation, I look forward to the new AGI research institute becoming a hub of innovation that unlocks new possibilities for the future of artificial intelligence.”