On vessels carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) at an extremely low temperature of −163°C, cargo containment technology is critical to keeping the LNG stable in its liquid state while minimizing evaporation. This is why shipbuilders continue to advance LNG cargo containment technology through ongoing research and development.   Commercializing a Three-Tank Cargo Containment System LNG carriers have conventionally been built with four-tank cargo containment systems. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) has recently broken that convention, becoming the first in the world to commercialize a three-tank system. HHI is now building vessels around a 176,800-cubic-meter (m³) three-tank design developed in partnership with French cargo containment technology firm GTT and Norwegian classification society DNV. The first ships to carry the three-tank design are a four-vessel series ordered by BW LNG, with deliveries scheduled to run from 2028 through 2029.   Moving to three tanks reduces the space between cargo tanks without changing the ship’s overall size, freeing up room for more cargo. On the vessels now under construction, that has increased LNG capacity from roughly 174,000 m³ to about 176,800 m³. Shipowners have taken notice: the design increases transport efficiency while avoiding the terminal berthing constraints associated with larger vessels.     Lower Transport Costs, Greater Efficiency and Reduced Emissions   By removing one insulated bulkhead from a 174,000-m³-class LNG carrier, HHI freed up roughly 2,800 m³ of additional space. That extra capacity means more cargo per voyage, which lowers the Unit Freight Cost — the cost of transporting each unit of cargo — and translates into better returns for shipowners.   Reducing the total surface area of the cargo containment system also decreases the amount of heat transferred from outside into the tanks, reducing the daily Boil-Off Rate (BOR) of the LNG on board. The three-tank design achieves a daily BOR of 0.08%, approximately 6% lower than that of the four-tank configuration, reducing the energy required for reliquefaction and improving operating efficiency.   Less boil-off gas means less energy is consumed by the reliquefaction system, reducing carbon emissions. The increased cargo capacity further lowers emissions per unit of cargo transported.   To address concerns about sloshing that can arise in larger cargo tanks, HHI conducted detailed strength analyses and reinforced both the structure and insulation system. These measures enable the vessels to operate safely even under partial-load conditions.     HHI showcased its three-tank LNG carrier technology at a GTT-hosted technical seminar during Gastech 2026, the world’s largest gas industry exhibition, which opened in Bangkok, Thailand, on September 14.   At the technical seminar, Hong-ryul Ryu, Chief Technology Officer at HHI, delivered a keynote address highlighting the technical strengths of the three-tank LNG carrier and its strategic value in the future low-carbon shipping market.

  -New 3 GW power generation engine production facility to be built in Ulsan, targeting full-scale operations in 2028 -Dedicated manufacturing facility for key SMR equipment to be established; global SMR market projected to grow to 150 GW by 2050 -"We will secure core competitiveness in power generation engines and SMRs to lead the global AI infrastructure market"   HD Hyundai Heavy Industries disclosed on the 10th that it will invest a total of KRW 1.0722 trillion to build a new power generation engine production facility and a dedicated manufacturing facility for small modular reactors (SMRs). The investment is aimed at strengthening the company's future competitiveness in land-based power generation engines and SMRs.   First, the company will invest KRW 833.6 billion to build a new 3-gigawatt (GW) production facility for its HiMSEN engines in Onsan-eup, Ulju-gun, Ulsan.   The new production complex will span approximately 215,000 square meters and include an engine assembly and testing facility, a crankshaft machining facility, and an engine block casting facility. Construction is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of next year, with completion targeted for May 2028 and full-scale operations to commence thereafter.   The investment is designed to accelerate HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' expansion into the land-based power generation market by leveraging decades of expertise accumulated in marine engines and proactively responding to surging power demand from AI data centers.   Through the expansion, HD Hyundai expects to secure annual production capacity of 4 GW for land-based power generation engines. The company will also improve production efficiency by operating separate production bases for HiMSEN engines.   HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' main Ulsan facility will focus on HiMSEN engines for marine applications, while the new facility and HD Hyundai Engine in Yeongam, South Jeolla Province, will specialize in HiMSEN engines for land-based power generation.   HD Hyundai expects the increased production efficiency from this dual-base production structure to expand its total HiMSEN engine production capacity for both marine and land-based power generation applications from the current 3 GW to 7.2 GW by 2030.   HD Hyundai Heavy Industries will also invest KRW 238.6 billion to establish a dedicated manufacturing facility for key SMR equipment, with SMRs increasingly recognized as a next-generation energy source. The facility will be built on the premises of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' Ulsan shipyard, with completion targeted for the first half of 2029.   SMRs are next-generation nuclear reactors that generate less power than conventional large-scale nuclear plants and use modularized key components. They offer the advantage of providing a stable supply of electricity while helping reduce carbon emissions. Interest in SMRs has been growing rapidly amid the increase in AI data centers, which require large amounts of power around the clock.   According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the global SMR market is projected to grow rapidly to 150 GW by 2050. Meanwhile, only a limited volume of key SMR equipment has so far been secured for manufacturing and supply, indicating significant potential for future growth.   "This investment is aimed at securing core competitiveness in power generation engines and SMRs, which are emerging as new sources of electricity in the AI era," an HD Hyundai Heavy Industries official said. "We will proactively respond to rapidly growing power demand and take the lead in the global AI infrastructure market."   Earlier this year, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries made a full-scale entry into the U.S. data center power infrastructure market by signing power generation equipment supply contracts with Aperion Energy Group and Corban Energy Group in April and August, respectively, valued at KRW 627.1 billion and KRW 956.0 billion.  

The emergence of AI is rapidly reshaping the industrial landscape. The arrival of ChatGPT marked a turning point, demonstrating in tangible terms that AI could go beyond being a simple technological tool to broadly augment human intellectual activities. Since then, with the emergence of Gemini, Claude, and Copilot, AI has continued to weave itself into daily life more broadly, moving past basic task support to take on the role of a personal assistant. These developments have accelerated discussions around artificial general intelligence (AGI), drawing attention to the opportunities it could create for businesses and the changes companies may face as a new era unfolds. AI is no longer confined to software. By integrating with physical devices such as robots and machinery, it is evolving into "physical AI," capable of independently perceiving, making decisions, and taking actions in the real world. This evolution is expected to significantly boost productivity across a wide range of industries. HD Hyundai is also developing a variety of AI solutions by training AI on the world-class expertise and know-how it has accumulated across its core businesses. Looking ahead, the company plans to go further by deploying AI solutions in the field to enhance productivity while pursuing a differentiation strategy through products incorporating AI technology. ■ Driving Synergies and Securing a Lasting Competitive Edge Through AIX In 2022, as the need to rapidly and efficiently adopt AI technologies grew across its core businesses, including shipbuilding, construction equipment, electric systems, and energy, HD Hyundai established a dedicated AI organization within HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering to accelerate the development and application of AI technologies. In November 2025, to further accelerate its AI Transformation (AIX), the company reorganized the dedicated AI organization into the “AIX Promotion Office” and elevated it to report directly to the CEO. The AIX Promotion Office’s top priority is strengthening workforce capabilities by raising the overall level of AI proficiency across the organization, from senior executives to new employees. At the same time, it is focused on connecting AI solutions that were previously deployed independently at individual sites to generate company-wide synergies, while integrating AI technologies into a range of next-generation design and production platforms. In particular, HD Hyundai plans to fully integrate AI technologies into its manufacturing operations to address key challenges facing Korea’s shipbuilding industry, including a shrinking workforce, weakening price competitiveness against China, and a narrowing technological lead. Accordingly, HD Hyundai’s shipbuilding affiliates are pursuing significant productivity gains across design and production to shorten lead times and strengthen cost competitiveness, while improving operational efficiency through more streamlined operations. AI-based ship design and simulation using Siemens CAD/PLM, NVIDIA graphics technology, and HD Hyundai Samho’s 3D LNG carrier model rendering (Source: NVIDIA Blog) ■ Connecting Design and the Shop Floor Through AI HD Hyundai is focused on developing a range of capabilities to improve shipyard operating efficiency, including the “Shipbuilding AI Master Agent.” The Shipbuilding AI Master Agent aims to create an integrated system by capturing and connecting the expertise of design and production specialists at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and HD Hyundai Samho. The goal is to develop an “action-oriented AI agent” that learns knowledge spanning the shipbuilding industry and, like a highly skilled master technician, makes optimal decisions at the right time and place across key value-chain processes, including design, production, quality, and safety. To achieve this, HD Hyundai is establishing standards for collecting and managing video data tailored to the characteristics of the industry, while continuously expanding its AI training datasets. The company plans to capture and codify production know-how using shop-floor video data, while building a system capable of comprehensive decision-making by seamlessly connecting design and production agents. In parallel, it is conducting research into key technologies that enable collaboration among agents, including MCP, a multi-agent collaboration platform, and A2A, which facilitates agent-to-agent communication. HD Hyundai is also concentrating its capabilities on bringing “physical AI” optimized for real-world industrial environments into full-scale application. A welding robot developed by HD Hyundai Robotics uses vision AI technology to capture images of completed welds, independently identify defective areas and defect types, and store the findings as data. This allows AI-generated data analysis to significantly reduce the resources required for quality inspections while improving inspection accuracy, eliminating the need for workers to visually check each weld across large-scale production sites. Similar welding robots are currently being introduced at shipbuilding production sites to validate their feasibility. Conventional robotic welding systems were limited in their ability to respond in real time as they operated only according to preset conditions. HD Hyundai, by contrast, has applied technology that integrates real-time images of the weld pool, the area where metal melts due to heat during welding, with robot data. AI-driven feedback can then immediately detect and correct defects, enabling the development of an automated quality management system. A robot working at the HD Hyundai shipyard HD Hyundai is also developing technologies to integrate physical AI into cranes used to handle large, heavy loads and other critical equipment across its manufacturing facilities, while significantly shortening the time required to deploy these technologies in the field. Shipyard cranes, in particular, are evolving beyond equipment used primarily for repetitive lifting tasks into critical systems capable of moving large loads of various shapes safely and quickly. Traditionally, these highly complex operations relied heavily on the experience of skilled workers to assess factors such as the shape of the load, rigging conditions, and crane characteristics. More recently, HD Hyundai has been capturing these expert decision-making processes and work instruction data as digital assets to create digital twin-based simulations. By modeling in real time the complex physical interactions among cranes, loads, wires, rigging conditions, and surrounding structures, the company is significantly improving operational precision and safety. Building on these capabilities, HD Hyundai is advancing toward an “intelligent operating system based on physical AI” that can interpret visual information from the worksite together with verbal instructions from operators and translate them into optimal crane operation plans. This technological advancement is expected to serve as a key foundation for HD Hyundai’s ultimate goal of building autonomous shipyards, the advanced shipyards of the future. In addition, HD Hyundai is introducing a new paradigm for the infrastructure construction market through the development of autonomous excavation equipment. HD Hyundai’s next-generation autonomous excavation technology is designed to integrate and interpret data from multiple sensors, with a single AI model independently managing the entire process, from work planning to equipment control. This enables human-like decision-making and precise operation even in complex, unstructured construction environments. In particular, the technology continuously learns from operational data collected in the field to improve its own performance. It is also expected to enhance both safety and productivity across a wide range of construction sites while helping address the industry’s challenges of an aging workforce and labor shortages. An unmanned autonomous excavator being demonstrated at CONEXPO 2026, a construction equipment trade show held in North America ■ In the Age of AI, What Is HD Hyundai’s Next AI Strategy? In the short term, HD Hyundai is working to raise AI capabilities across all its affiliates as part of its broader AI transformation. Notably, the company plans to apply AI technologies across all of the Group’s business areas to secure high-quality industrial data and use this foundation to strengthen its fundamental competitiveness in AI technology. HD Hyundai is also preparing to introduce industry-specific “physical AI” into key manufacturing processes, including welding and painting, as part of its efforts to build advanced shipyards of the future. At the same time, the company is integrating its proprietary AI technologies into unified production and design platforms, while focusing its capabilities on developing AI simulation technologies for digital manufacturing and building the necessary infrastructure. Beyond using AI simply as a tool to support day-to-day tasks, HD Hyundai continues to advance its AI development capabilities as it transforms into an “AI-native” company, placing AI at the core of its management and operational systems. Key examples include the development and demonstration of welding robots by HD Hyundai Robotics and autonomous excavation technology by HD Construction Equipment, as well as the implementation of smart factories. By turning its accumulated, distinctive production know-how into digital assets, HD Hyundai plans to build manufacturing operations that are ultimately driven entirely by AI and data.