RDA’s ‘AI Isaki’ and Daedong’s ‘AI Daedongi’ Join Hands

[Korea Agricultural Technology Newspaper = Reporter Lee Hyun-woo] As South Korean agriculture faces an unprecedented crisis caused by sudden pest outbreaks from the climate crisis, unpredictable heat waves and torrential rains, and a rapid decline in the rural population, the nation’s first integration of public and private artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is stepping forward as a customized problem-solver for farms.

Daedong AI Lab, the AI-specialized affiliate of the Daedong Group, has joined hands with the Rural Development Administration. The two organizations have decided to build an interoperable system for ‘agricultural AI agents’ that organically combines public agricultural knowledge services with private field-oriented farming services, a move expected to further accelerate the digital transformation of agriculture that farmers can actually feel in the field.

Daedong AI Lab (CEO Choi Jun-gi) announced on June 26 that it signed a ‘business agreement (MOU) for linking public-private agricultural AI agents’ with the Rural Development Administration (Administrator Lee Seung-don).

The core of this agreement is to combine high-quality specialized agricultural technology data verified by a public institution with the strong customer touchpoints and field data held by a private company. Until now, agricultural AI services have been criticized for lacking information accuracy depending on the platform or for lacking practical usefulness in the field, but this cooperation is interpreted as a strategy to directly break through those limitations.

At the center of the cooperation are the RDA’s generative AI ‘AI Isaki’ and Daedong’s farming assistant service ‘AI Daedongi.’ ‘AI Isaki’ is a public AI model that provides accurate knowledge based on standard agricultural technology information accumulated and verified by the RDA over many years, while ‘AI Daedongi’ has provided close-contact services specialized for agricultural sites through the Daedong Connect app, including guidance on agricultural machinery use, crop cultivation, and pest and disease consultations.

The two organizations first agreed to link the verified agricultural knowledge data held by ‘AI Isaki’ to ‘AI Daedongi’ in real time. Once this system is established, when a farmer asks ‘AI Daedongi’ a question, they will simultaneously receive a highly complete answer that combines Daedong’s field-tailored consultation data with the RDA’s publicly verified data.

In addition, a virtuous cycle centered on the field will also be established. Real-time question statistics from agricultural sites and customer voice (VOC) data collected through ‘AI Daedongi’ will be mutually shared with the RDA and actively reflected in future agricultural technology R&D and service advancement.

This cooperation is drawing industry attention because it marks the starting point toward ‘physical AI.’ Daedong AI Lab plans to significantly expand the service in the future into a ‘phone-based AI farming assistant’ so that elderly farmers who are not familiar with operating smartphones or applications (apps) will not be left out of the benefits. The aim is to lower the barrier to device operation and bridge the digital divide in rural areas.

Furthermore, in the long term, this AI farming assistant will be linked with smart agricultural machinery and agricultural robots such as autonomous tractors and rice transplanters. The ambition is to complete a one-stop physical AI ecosystem of so-called ‘consultation-record-analysis-work execution,’ in which the results discussed with and analyzed by the AI farming assistant directly lead to autonomous work instructions for agricultural machinery.

However, there are also clear challenges that must be solved for successful settlement in the field. In South Korea, where more than 40% of the farming population is elderly, the success or failure is likely to depend on how precisely phone-based AI can secure voice recognition accuracy and dialect processing capability. In addition, to ease the burden of initial costs arising from the introduction of agricultural machinery or robots equipped with advanced AI technology, organic linkage with the government’s smart agriculture subsidy support policies and practical farm profitability (ROI) analysis will also be needed.

Choi Jun-gi, CEO of Daedong AI Lab, said, “The true value of agricultural artificial intelligence lies in helping farmers easily with their daily farming decisions and increasing productivity,” adding, “By combining highly reliable public standard information with Daedong’s unrivaled field data, we will complete a customized AI service that benefits everyone from young farmers to elderly farmers.”

Lee Sang-ho, Director General for Planning and Coordination at the Rural Development Administration, emphasized, “By breaking down barriers between public and private agricultural AI services and combining them organically, a foundation has been 마련됐다 for all farmers to enjoy digital benefits,” and “Starting with this cooperation, we will spare no administrative and technical support to further accelerate the AI transformation (AX) of agricultural and rural sites and revitalize the agtech industry ecosystem.”