LG Electronics establishes hiring-guaranteed AI department at Yonsei

LG Electronics Inc. is poised to set up a new department at Seoul-based Yonsei University to train aspiring artificial intelligence engineers. 

As competition for recruiting AI engineers becomes more fierce, South Korean conglomerates have opted to nurture their own talent. 

From the latter half of this year, LG Electronics will operate the Department of Artificial Intelligence under the College of Computing at Yonsei. 

The soon-to-be launched department will cover the whole gamut of software research and development, such as machine learning, big data, cloud, robotics, and system software. 

Each student to the master’s program will receive a scholarship worth 36 million won ($28,829) over the course of two years. They will also be invited to participate in LG Electronics’ projects and are guaranteed recruitment by the company.

An LG employee told The Korea Economic Daily that AI is the common denominator for a variety of future growth engines. “We are working with Yonsei University in order to preemptively secure top talent in the AI sector,” the industry insider explained. 

The electronics arm of the LG Group also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sogang University, another Seoul-based private academic institute. The two entities will establish an AI department – also with guaranteed hiring by LG. 

LG Electronics has had a string of successes with their hiring-guaranteed departments with leading universities around the peninsula. 

The conglomerate founded master’s programs at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST,) Korea University, and Hanyang University for the purpose of hiring graduates to the company’s smart home and software businesses upon their graduations.

An LG employee familiar with the projects said: “It is not just the AI sector that is struggling to recruit and keep talent. The existing hiring-guaranteed departments will also see an increase in the number of students.” 

NATIONWIDE TREND 

LG Group, which has LG Corp. as its holding company, is investing in some 100 undergraduate and graduate students to train them into experts who can later work for the conglomerate. 

LG Energy Solution Ltd. began operating a department with Korea University and Yonsei University for training engineers in the battery sector. 

Come next year, LG Display Co. plans to open up the Department of Display Convergence Engineering with a 30-person capacity at a local university and is already considering an additional department that guarantees a job at the conglomerate to each student who completes the master’s and doctoral programs. 

Other conglomerates are doing the same. 

This year, Samsung Electronics Co. has launched a new hiring-guaranteed program at KAIST and the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH.) 

Not only that, the industry leader will seek a new university partner to set up a semiconductor department that will also promise hiring to enrolled students upon graduation. 

SK Hynix Inc. launched similar academic programs at Sogang University and Hanyang University. 

Experts say the hiring-guaranteed departments at universities are evolved versions of industry-academic alliances where universities facilitated internships and other opportunities to work in working-level capacities at firms.

As companies realize that the speed of technological development is increasingly more dependent on how many experienced employees they can secure, the corporate world is putting unprecedented focus on human resources. 

Criticisms remain, however, that the establishment of such departments are not enough. 

“Securing talent in the technology sector should not rely solely on corporate initiatives but should become a government agenda,” an employee at one of the conglomerates stressed. “The government, corporate sector, and academia must work together to prepare a mid- to long-term roadmap for these shared goals.”

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.