LG Group is set to launch South Korea’s first corporate graduate school to address the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) talent crunch. The “LG AI Graduate School” will offer formal master’s and doctoral degrees like prestigious universities such as Seoul National University, Yonsei University and Korea University.
The National Assembly of Korea passed a bill allowing large companies to create accredited in-house graduate schools last December. LG Group, the fourth-largest conglomerate in Korea, plans to apply to establish this graduate school when the new law becomes effective in January next year, according to people familiar with the matter on Mar. 19.
The school will be staffed with 20 AI experts, including Vice President Lee Honglak, a professor at the University of Michigan. He is recognized as one of the world’s top 10 AI scholars. LG has plans to enroll 30 of its employees into the program starting in 2026, offering them master’s and Ph.D. degrees recognized on par with those from prestigious universities. The company will also hire external faculty to bolster the program’s quality.
Korean conglomerates have been setting up in-house universities or partnering with universities to foster talent that meets their specific needs. LG’s approach of establishing a graduate school is also a strategic move to cultivate experts in the AI era. “This initiative shows the blurring of the boundaries between academia and industry,” said an industry insider.
Universities have rushed to increase AI-focused programs and majors amid the AI boom. But companies say programs offered by academia are insufficient. The rapid evolution of advanced technology, including AI, means that by the time graduates enter the workforce, their knowledge may already be outdated. “There are a lot of people with master’s and doctoral degrees in AI, but it’s hard to tell what practical knowledge they’ve gained,” said an industry insider.
Companies are concerned that education provided by traditional institutions falls short of industry standards, given that hiring college graduates involves years of retraining. “Recruiting talent with master’s and doctoral degrees in AI is in itself a challenge, but the bigger problem is that it takes them typically three to four years to grasp the nuances of the industry fully,” said an official from LG AI Research.
“There is a severe mismatch in AI talent, both in terms of quality and quantity,” said a researcher at a Korean conglomerate.
As of 2020, there were 477,956 individuals specializing in AI globally as of 2020, with only 2,551 based in Korea, according to research by the Federation of Korean Industries. This accounts for merely 0.5% of the global AI talent pool, placing South Korea 22nd in international rankings. The country trails far behind the U.S., which holds 39.4% of the world’s AI talent, India with 15.9%, the UK with 7.4%, and China with 4.6% or 22,091 AI professionals.
