Chairman Chey Tae-won attends the 4th Nanjing Forum

Chairman Chey Tae-won attended the Nanjing Forum held under the title of ‘Open the AI, open the future’ in Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province of China for three days from November 22 to 24 and strongly urged the global community to actively press ahead with the creation of social values using disruptive technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence).

 

 

Necessity for a Methodology to Measure Social Values Delivered by

Chairman Chey stated in his opening speech, “Disruptive technologies such as machine learning and AI promise enormous benefits for our life, but they also bring about worries and concerns at the same time,” and emphasized, “If these technologies are to be harnessed for the good of mankind, we need to develop a methodology with which we can measure AI social values both quantitatively and qualitatively.” He went on to explain, “SK has developed and is using the DBL (Double Bottom Line) as a methodology to measure its performance in monetary terms,” and added, “The DBL covers the whole range of direct/indirect economic activities and social contribution activities including employment, tax payment, carbon emission, CSR, subsidy, donation, and what not.”

 

Social Values Being Promoted Together with Global Partners    

After reporting its 2018 DBL measurements for the first time at the Shanghai Forum held early this year, SK has worked on joint research initiatives on social values with global partners who empathize with SK on social values, notably the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) in China, and promoted social values in partnership with state-run enterprises of the country, among other actions.

 

 

Chairman Chey commented, “In terms of DBL contributed by SK in Jiangsu Province last year, SK created social values worth a total of 152 million dollars although SK posted a deficit of 80 million dollars in environmental domain.” He forecasted, “SK will be able to lift up social values in the environmental domain from minus to zero by 2023 in cooperation with Jiangsu Province and create social values worth 2 billion dollars in the decade to come,” eliciting a thrilled reaction from Nanjing Forum attendees.

 

Need for Delivering Talents Commensurate with Technological Innovation

At this year’s Nanjing Forum, Chairman Chey also presented cases where SK created social values by harnessing cutting-edge technologies such as AI and big data in semiconductors, EV (Electric Vehicle) batteries, and high-tech material domains. He reported, “Semiconductor plants have deployed AI and big data systems to find algorithms that optimize several dozen factors of economic/social values and thereby maximize social values,” underscoring the need for training and delivering engineering professionals as required by the current era of cutting-edge technology innovation.

 

 

The Nanjing Forum is an academic forum of social/natural science studies jointly hosted every year by Nanjing University and the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies (CIAS) founded by SK in memory of the late founding chairman Chey Jong-hyon’s commitment to produce men of talent. Chairman Chey attended the forum in the capacity of CIAS Chairman and met with high-ranking officials Lou Qinjian (婁勤儉), Secretary of Jiangsu Province, China along with other SK management executives to discuss opportunities for specific business partnership initiatives.

 

In Jiangsu Province posting the second-biggest provincial GDP figures in China, SK has entered into business sectors such as semiconductors, EV batteries, high-tech materials, and healthcare, hiring 6,800+ local employees and posting a revenue of 12.7 billion dollars this year. Employee count and revenue are expected to jump drastically to over 11,000 persons and 18.5 billion dollars respectively by 2021.