Hyundai Engineering & Construction said on the 7th that it signed a business agreement on "establishing a mutual cooperation system for construction technology development and industrial advancement" on the 6th at the international conference hall of the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) in Goyang Special City, Gyeonggi Province.
The signing ceremony was held with key officials in attendance, including Kim Jae-young, head of the Hyundai Engineering & Construction Technology Research Institute, and Park Seon-gyu, president of the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT).
The agreement was prepared to combine the fundamental technologies of a specialized research institute with the on-site demonstration capabilities of a private construction company to strengthen technology in infrastructure fields such as construction and transportation and to establish an organic cooperation system.
Hyundai Engineering & Construction and KICT plan to strengthen cooperation on converting to a software-defined future road system (SDR; Software Defined Road) and on developing and demonstrating hyperloop infrastructure technologies.
They also plan to expand joint research to include the fields of geotechnics, bridges, tunnels, underground spaces, and advanced materials; energy, environment, and architectural technologies for carbon neutrality; construction Robotics and smart construction technologies; and water disaster response technologies for floods and droughts.
Hyundai Engineering & Construction is expected to simultaneously enhance its technological competitiveness and product completeness across its core business areas, including infrastructure, architecture, and smart construction.
Spurred by this agreement, the first area to enter preliminary research will be the "software-defined future road system." SDR is a next-generation transportation system that moves away from hardware-centric roads to control and optimize real-time road conditions based on data and software.
The two companies will develop a digitally optimized intelligent road operation model using traffic operation simulations and smart road management technologies. These technologies are expected to be applied to actual road projects and Smart City development in the future.
Infrastructure development related to the hyperloop, known as the "train of dreams," is also expected to move forward. The hyperloop is a future eco-friendly mode of transportation that operates magnetically levitated high-speed trains inside large vacuum tubes at speeds over 1,000 kph, faster than commercial airplanes.
Hyundai Engineering & Construction plans to work with the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) to develop related infrastructure technologies, including vacuum tubes, to secure global-level technological prowess and project execution capabilities in the ultra-high-speed transportation infrastructure sector.
A Hyundai Engineering & Construction official said, "With the recent expansion of autonomous vehicle operations and the creation of Smart Cities, the digital transformation of related infrastructure is accelerating," adding, "Through this agreement, Hyundai Engineering & Construction will proactively secure next-generation mobility infrastructure technologies and enhance the technological completeness of existing core products to lead the commercialization of next-generation construction technologies and the shift in Korea's construction paradigm."