Our education and research group, “Trustworthy and Resource-efficient Unified Evolving AI (TRUE-AI),” was awarded the BK21 FOUR program. The program provides us with the total budget of 1.2B KRW through February 2027, and we are preparing to transition to the BK21 FIVE program thereafter.

The TRUE-AI group consists of 12 faculty members from Cybersecurity, Computer Science, and AI Convergence, specializing in multimodal and generative AI, AI systems and optimization, and secure and reliable AI, as well as approximately 60 graduate students. I serve as the principal investigator of this project.

We aim to advance trustworthy and resource-efficient AI to address growing demands for secure, efficient, and reliable intelligence systems. As large-scale multimodal AI models increasingly consume massive computational resources and face heightened risks of cyberattacks and data leakage, there is a critical talent gap in high-trust, high-efficiency AI expertise.

Our program establishes two strategic pillars—high-efficiency AI (model compression, constrained-environment learning, distributed AI systems) and high-trust AI (privacy-preserving AI and adversarial robustness). We build an integrated, interdisciplinary training system spanning AI software, hardware, and security, supported by strong industry partnerships, global collaboration, and practical field education. Through this ecosystem, we cultivate top-tier AI talent equipped for industry needs and global competitiveness.