POSCO Group on the 22nd opened Korea's first advanced manufacturing incubating center in Pohang, North Gyeongsang, and began nurturing local manufacturing startups.
The newly opened "RIST Advanced Manufacturing Incubating Center" is a base for fostering manufacturing startups that POSCO Group, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, North Gyeongsang Province, and Pohang City created together, leveraging the practical research capabilities of the Research Institute of Industrial Science & Technology (RIST).
The center has two above-ground floors and a total floor area of 4,074㎡, accommodating up to 10 corporations. To help startups in advanced new materials and energy-environment fields validate products and scale up to mass production, it is equipped with shared facilities for six major industrial gases, including cooling water and compressed air, and hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. RIST provides testing and analysis, reliability evaluation, and process design technologies.
POSCO Group will handle the entire incubating process, from discovering promising ventures to research and development, facility and process expansion, commercialization, and securing global sales channels. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) and North Gyeongsang Province will support center operations. Tenant corporations can receive assistance throughout the entire process, from technology development and demonstration-mass production to investment attraction and plant establishment.
The center was created as part of "Changeup," the venture-nurturing platform POSCO Group has operated. Changeup is an open-innovation system in which industry, academia, research, and the local ecosystem collaborate to pursue venture discovery, investment, and infrastructure building. POSCO Group discovers corporations that can link with its strategic businesses and makes direct investments or supports research and development.
Currently, four companies have moved into the center: Enforus, which produces hydrogen using high-temperature electrolysis; Solarize, a solar inverter firm; Vericore Materials, an eco-friendly coating company; and EA Force, a secondary-battery solvent extractant company. These corporations received direct or indirect investment or research support from POSCO Group.
Among them, Enforus was selected last year as the first corporations of POSCO Holdings' planned entrepreneurship program. Planned entrepreneurship is a venture-nurturing system in which the group identifies high-commercialization-value technologies among its research and development assets and co-designs the entire pre-incorporation process with startup-specialized institutions.
POSCO Group plans to use the center to help regional manufacturing ventures grow and to drive new businesses and job creation.