Ministry of Trade Industry and Resources

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources (MOTIR, Minister JK Kim) held the fourth Industrial AI International Certification Forum at COEX in Seoul on October 20, 2026, together with the Korea Testing Laboratory (KTL), the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT), and other relevant organizations.

Testing and certification are becoming increasingly important as Manufacturing AI Transformation (M.AX) expands across manufacturing sites and international demand grows for evidence of AI safety and reliability. In particular, differing certification requirements across countries and duplicate testing place a burden on Korean companies entering overseas markets. This has increased the need for cooperation on certification that allows testing and evaluation results to be used abroad.

Industrial AI International Certification, also known as M.AX certification, assesses and certifies the performance and reliability of products and services used for AI transformation in manufacturing, such as automated defect inspection and equipment failure prediction, based on international standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The certification system has been developed primarily by Korean testing and certification bodies, helping companies objectively demonstrate the reliability of their AI products and services. Since November 2025, however, mutual recognition with CertX, a Swiss certification body, has enabled companies to use testing and evaluation results from Korea to apply for and obtain overseas certification as needed.

At the forum, two Korean companies, Hyundai AutoEver and Wizcore, were presented with joint certificates from KTL and CertX under the two bodies’ mutual recognition arrangement. The arrangement allows the companies to obtain overseas certification without repeating tests for items covered by mutual recognition. They can therefore reduce the cost and time required for certification and use the certificates to demonstrate the performance and reliability of their products and services to overseas customers.

Since its launch in 2023, the forum has gradually strengthened the certification framework by establishing a certification system, issuing Korea’s first industrial AI certificates, and increasing the number of testing and evaluation bodies. The issuance of overseas certificates at this year’s forum marks a concrete result of the domestic certification infrastructure developed to date. This cooperation on certification is expected to be of great help to Korean companies that are preparing to address overseas AI regulations, including the EU AI Act, in demonstrating the reliability of their products and services and entering overseas markets.

At the conference, Lauro Locks, Counsellor at the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Korea University Professor Lee Sang-keun gave presentations on the changing international trade environment in the AI era and the importance of ensuring reliability. Korean companies, including Lotte Corporation, Hyundai AutoEver, and Wizcore, also shared their experience in using industrial AI certification and their strategies for entering overseas markets.

“The overseas certificates issued at the forum mark a meaningful achievement that demonstrates the potential for Korea’s testing and certification system to be used internationally,” said Kim Kyu-sung, President of the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS). “We will expand mutual recognition with overseas certification bodies to reduce the burden of duplicate testing on companies and actively support Korean companies pursuing M.AX in entering global markets.”