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Bird's-eye view of the SK Pavilion at WAVE 2026. / SK Innovation

SK Innovation is converting its Ulsan CLX, operated for some 60 years, into an artificial intelligence (AI)-based production base. The company is broadening the scope of AI implementation across refining and petrochemical operations, spanning production optimization, predictive facility maintenance, and workplace safety management. Its blueprint envisions linking the AI capabilities SK Group has built around semiconductors and data centers directly to factory floors, turning Ulsan CLX into a central hub for the group's manufacturing AI transformation (AX).

According to SK Innovation on the 3rd, the company will unveil its manufacturing AI strategy at WAVE 2026, held at the Ulsan Exhibition and Convention Center from the 10th to the 12th. Setting up the largest exhibition pavilion among participating firms, the company will showcase an integrated AI value chain extending from AI data centers down to refinery and petrochemical production lines.

The core of this manufacturing AI transition lies in expanding AI into the decision-making process of plant operations. Ulsan CLX is establishing a "dual brain" framework in which AI analyzes data while engineers with decades of field experience leverage those insights to make strategic choices. On the shop floor, AI concurrently evaluates countless operational variables to identify optimal running conditions across entire process workflows.

Facility management is shifting from reactive and periodic maintenance to predictive maintenance. AI anticipates equipment malfunctions, aging, and lifecycle limits, while physical AI—including crawler robots, drones, and quadruped robot dogs—drives efficiency and unmanned operations in facility inspections.

AI is also being deployed to manage workplace safety across the 8.26-square-kilometer site. By integrating vision AI into its proprietary video surveillance system, SHEild, Ulsan CLX detects hazards in real time and links them to on-site emergency responses.

The manufacturing AI systems at Ulsan CLX connect to the SK AI data center currently under construction in Ulsan. Leveraging the data facility being built by SK Telecom and SK Broadband in Yongyeon-dong, Nam-gu, Ulsan, the company will channel the group's broader AI capabilities into manufacturing operations. Ulsan CLX also promotes a "one task per person" initiative encouraging on-site engineers to utilize AI, and it will unveil proprietary AI agents developed directly by its engineers at the exhibition.

Hong Kwang-pyo, Executive Vice President and Head of Ulsan CLX, stated, "Through the 'dual brain' approach combining AI's analytical power with the deep insights our personnel have accumulated over decades, Ulsan CLX will establish itself as the premier site leading South Korea's sweeping manufacturing AX transition."

                                                                                                            Lee Seo-yeon