Prof. Le Song (MBZUAI)
Title: A World Model of the Virtual Cell
Abs:
The outlook of an AI-driven digital organism, such as a virtual cell, has recently captivated much excitement and imagination from both AI and Biology communities. With a virtual cell, one can anticipate a paradigm shift of cell biology research from trial-and-error experimental exploration with cell-culture models in a wet lab, to systematic simulation of any combinatorial interventions with a computational model in a digital lab. But what constitutes an adequate realization of virtual cell? In this talk, I will explain an operational definition of the virtual cell based on World Model — a modern architecture recently emerged in AI research that supports advanced capabilities such as action-conditioned simulation, counterfactual reasoning, and long-horizon planning in complex dynamic environments. A world model is an AI-driven generative software system that outputs all world-possibilities upon action-prompts for simulative reasoning. When applied to biological scenarios, a world model of the virtual cell is a generative model that simulates biological possibilities of a cell under any natural or artificial interventions of the cell, or a cell population (within a tissue type or an organ). A virtual cell world model (VCWM) contrasts predictive foundation models on specific tasks, such as gene-expression perturbation prediction, as seen in some recent definitions of the virtual cell. We present a novel architecture for such a world model that enables simulated cell as an end-to-end platform: from actionable biological prompts to anticipated outcomes at all levels — molecular, structural, interactional, and morphological, in a fully aligned, integrative, multi-modal, and multi-scale fashion. We envisage that the VCWM paradigm will not simply accelerate biological experimentation, but may transform how biological possibility is explored, shifting discovery from exhaustive experimental search to structured navigation within learned cellular worlds, bringing biology closer to an industrial age of predictive design and programmable systems.
Bio:
Le Song is the CTO of GenBio AI. Le Song is also a full professor of Mohamed bin Zayed University of AI (MBZUAI), and was a tenured associate professor of Georgia Institute of Technology, and the conference program chair of ICML 2022. He is an expert in AI and AI for Science and has won many best paper awards in premium AI conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML and AISTATS. He has pioneered the AI of biology and virtual cell research by pretraining the large single cell models and has developed the largest protein language model in the world with 100-billion parameters. His work on using large language models for biology has also been published in Nature family journals and was featured as the cover story in Nature Machine Intelligence. He was also the CTO of BioMap, where he developed a 1-billion-dollar deal between the company and big pharma (Sanofi) which is the first large language model based collaborative project in the field.
김승환 상무 (LG AI연구원)
Title: Agentic AI를 넘어 Physical AI로, LG AI가 만들어가는 더 나은 세상
Abs:
LG AI연구원은 “인류의 더 나은 삶을 위한 AI 기술 선도”를 미션으로, 생성형 AI를 넘어 Agentic AI와 Physical AI로 확장되는 차세대 AI 기술을 다양한 산업 현장에 적용하며 혁신을 만들어가고 있다. 본 강연에서는 R&D, 생산, 품질, 물류 등 산업 전반의 밸류체인(Value Chain)에서 AI가 실제로 어떻게 활용되고 있는지 다양한 사례를 중심으로 소개한다. 특히 Agentic AI를 통해 단순 업무 보조를 넘어 스스로 판단하고 계획·수행하는 자율형 업무 환경이 어떻게 구현되고 있는지 설명한다. 또한 LG AI연구원이 궁극적으로 지향하는 ‘Autonomous Factory’와 사람·AI·로봇이 유기적으로 협업하는 미래 제조 환경의 방향성도 함께 공유한다. 이를 통해 생성형 AI 이후 산업 현장에서 AI가 어떤 방식으로 진화하고 있으며, 앞으로 Physical AI가 만들어갈 새로운 변화와 가능성을 조망하고자 한다.
Bio:
- (졸) 서울대학교 전기공학부 박사
- (현) LG AI연구원 Expert AI 연구그룹장 겸 Physical Intelligence Lab장
국가인공지능전략위원회 산업AX·생태계 분과위원
피지컬 AI 얼라이언스 AI모델 액션그룹장
김주형 교수 (UIUC)
Title: Return of Teleoperation in the Age of Embodied/Physical AI
Abs:
As automation expands across manufacturing and logistics, robots must increasingly operate safely and adaptively in human-centered environments. Recent progress in humanoid robotics has renewed interest in systems capable of physical interaction, versatile manipulation, and collaboration with people. In this talk, I will discuss the technological and historical context behind this trend, with examples from our work on human-centered robot design, motion control, and interaction. I will focus particularly on the renewed role of teleoperation in Embodied/Physical AI, not only for remote control, but also for skill transfer, shared autonomy, and large-scale multimodal data collection. Drawing on UIUC KIMLAB’s PAPRAS and PAPRLE platforms, I will show how modular robotic systems can enable intuitive interaction and scalable learning, and discuss how these approaches may contribute to the future of intelligent manufacturing.
Bio:
Joohyung Kim is an Associate Professor of ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and MechSE (Mechanical Science & Engineering), and the director of KIMLAB (Kinetic Intelligent Machine LAB) at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on design and control for humanoid robots, system for motion learning in robot hardware, and safe human-robot interaction. He received BSE and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) from Seoul National University, Korea, in 2001 and 2012. He was with Disney Research as a Research Scientist from 2013 to 2019. Prior to joining Disney, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University for DARPA Robotics Challenge in 2013. From 2009 to 2012, he was a Research Staff Member in Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and Samsung Electronics, Korea, developing biped walking controllers for humanoid robots.
홍진배 원장 (IITP)
Title: AX2.0 시대 우리의 준비
Abs:
인공지능(AI)이 단순한 효율화 도구를 넘어 업무와 일상의 기본 인프라로 자리 잡은 'AX 2.0(AI Transformation 2.0)' 시대가 본격적으로 막을 올렸습니다. 이제 중요한 것은 기술의 단순한 도입이 아니라, AI를 조직의 핵심 경쟁력으로 고도화하고 지속 가능한 성장을 이끌어내는 고차원적 실행 전략입니다.
본 강연에서는 AX 2.0 시대가 불러온 산업 생태계의 패러다임 변화를 다각도로 짚어보고, 개인과 기업이 변화에 발맞춰 갖춰야 할 필수 핵심 역량을 살펴봅니다. 나아가 실무 현장에서 즉시 적용할 수 있는 단계별 프로세스와 선제적 대응 전략을 제시합니다.
AI와의 심화된 협업 환경 속에서 새로운 기회를 선점하고, 급변하는 미래 시장의 주도권을 확보하고자 하는 모든 분들의 많은 관심과 참여를 바랍니다.
Bio:
고려대 무역학과를 졸업하고, 영국 런던정경대(LSE)에서 MIS 석사와 맨체스터대에서 기술경영학 박사학위를 받았다. 행정고시 38회로 1996년 공직에 입문해 과학기술정보통신부에서 인터넷정책과장, 정책총괄과장, 통신 정책관, 정보보호네트워크정책관, 네트워크정책실장 등을 거치며, 초고속인터넷 확산, 통신시장경쟁, 사이버보안, 4차산업혁명 관련 인공지능·데이터·스타트업육성 정책을 총괄했다. 2021년 대통령 홍보근정훈장을 받았으며, 2024년 2월부터 AI와 ICT분야 핵심기술 R&D 및 인재양성을 전담 기획·지원하는 정보통신기획평가원장을 맡고 있다.
