Korean Air (003490.KS) will participate in ‘NextRise 2026,’ a startup and tech expo held over two days from Thursday at COEX in Seoul’s Gangnam district, the company said Wednesday.
At the expo, Korean Air plans to showcase its intelligent air traffic control technology, “ACROSS.” The company explained that this technology will present a direction for an air traffic system capable of operating Advanced Air Mobility (AAM).
It will also unveil a future combat system in which artificial intelligence (AI) makes its own judgments and integrates command of the battlefield. Specifically, the company will showcase a low-observable unmanned wingman aircraft and a subsonic unmanned target drone, both currently under in-house development. It will also reveal for the first time test flight footage of an AI drone being jointly developed with U.S. defense company Anduril.
Korean Air also plans to showcase its “Smart MRO” technology, which uses robots and AI to perform aircraft maintenance. With this technology, drones and a ground rover photograph the upper and lower exterior of the aircraft being serviced, and AI analyzes the footage to detect minute defects before notifying mechanics. Korean Air explained that this can reduce inspection time from 10 hours to one hour.
Korean Air is also pursuing a plan to commercialize the new maintenance technology together with global aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
