"While majoring in environmental engineering and geological resources, I became interested in 'urban mining,' a field of resource circulation. In order to realize urban mining, extracting resources from discarded products, a 'sorting' process is essential. However, when people are involved in the sorting process, the actual recycling rate is only 30%. To increase the recycling rate, I realized the need for artificial intelligence (AI) robots that can replace humans, leading to the development of Aitron."

Park Taehyeong (pictured), CEO of Aetech, said in an interview with the Seoul Economic Daily on the 26th, "If we replace the working environment, which is poor and disfavored by many people, with robot solutions, we can revolutionize the entire waste industry." Aetech is a climate tech startup established in 2020 by CEO Park to solve the recycling waste problem. The company manufactures and sells Atron, a waste sorting robot that has been completely self-developed from software to hardware. A 1652m² unmanned robot resource recovery center is also under construction in Incheon, with the goal of completion next year. The center will be operated solely by robots, with plans to install over 28 Aitrons.

With increased interest in AI following the emergence of ChatGPT and the growing climate crisis, Atron is also accelerating its scale-up. Having received a series A investment of 8.6 billion won last year, the cumulative investment has exceeded 12.2 billion won. Currently, before entering the full-fledged series B stage, the company is conducting a bridge round and plans to raise 5 billion won by the end of this year.

Negative views on unfamiliar technology..."Persuading by knocking on doors"

Having spent most of his school years and even working in Canada, CEO Park decided to start a business in Korea for a new challenge. He chose the resource circulation ecosystem, an area he had long been interested in, as his business idea. "I thought about what field could be both beneficial to society and create economic impact," he said. "I've been interested in environmental issues since I was young, and as the company grew, I wanted to feel proud that I was contributing to people's daily lives and the environment." He added, "In order to realize urban mining, which recovers necessary resources from discarded products, I took on the challenge in the domestic waste market."

In this way, he founded Aetech to build a system for sorting waste with AI and robots. However, despite the growing attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, his business was not well received. This was due to the lack of understanding of information technology (IT) such as AI and robots, rather than the concept of urban mining. CEO Park explained, "As the history of domestic waste processing market is long, most of the workers are older." He continued, "There were many negative views on the idea of replacing people who are already sorting waste with AI and robots."

Furthermore, in order to train AI, data obtained from waste sorting facilities was essential. The waste and sorting operations needed to be filmed with image recognition sensors to process the data into a form that internal developers could use for AI training. As a result, CEO Park decided to meet and persuade the business owners in the waste sorting facilities to install cameras. He reminisced, "Most of them refused when I visited waste management companies and asked for their cooperation, saying 'I'm developing AI robots, so please cooperate.' But fortunately, thanks to a few people who viewed it as admirable for a young person to start a business, we were able to collect the data."

Declining offers from large companies to focus on the environment..."Refusing tempting proposals"

Aetech secured basic data on waste and developed a prototype of the AI waste sorting robot Atron in 2021. Through constant upgrades, it successfully commercialized it last year. This caught the attention of large companies, leading to offers. CEO Park said, "There were proposals from large companies that wanted to apply the AI for analysis and reading, as it has high versatility. They wanted to introduce the AI and robots developed by AitTech to their home appliance production lines or for sorting delivery boxes."

However, in order to keep to his entrepreneurial goal of 'environmental protection,' CEO Park declined these proposals. He said, "Once a startup goes off track, it's not easy to come back, and we didn't have the resources to separately upgrade the AI to suit the manufacturing and distribution environment." He emphasized, "If we had simply pursued business expansion and profit realization, we would have accepted the offers from large companies." He added, "But I resisted the temptation with the thought of contributing to the environment and society, and will continue to choose to stay in the climate tech industry, even if similar proposals come in the future."

Aim to automate household waste sorting...Venturing into overseas markets

Aetech is currently developing an unmanned waste sorting facility operated solely by robots in Incheon. Through the unmanned robot resource recovery center, Aetech aims to leap from a simple AI robot manufacturer and seller to a direct producer in the resource circulation ecosystem. Furthermore, the company is also considering a new business model of supplying such plants as waste solutions directly. Based on these solutions, it is anticipated that it will solve the labor shortage issue in the waste processing industry, an industry considered to be shunned, and raise the waste recycling rate at sorting facilities, which was only 30%, to 70%.

At the same time, a new sorting solution that can be applied when waste is discharged from households is also being developed by expanding the concept of the unmanned robot resource recovery center. This year, after conducting the technical verification (PoC) of the 'automated collection and sorting solution for recyclable waste' (tentative name), there are plans to further develop it for practical use next year. CEO Park confidently said, "Separate collection of recyclable waste in every household is actually very cumbersome and complicated. Once the solution we are currently developing is completed, it will be able to automate the sorting of recyclable waste in households, apartment complexes, and apartments."

There is also the possibility of overseas expansion. Resource circulation is a field that is attracting attention not only in Korea but also overseas. CEO Park said, "I predict that we will be able to export to such Southeast Asian regions as Singapore and Indonesia, where the land is narrow and the population density is high, as quickly as next year." He stated his ambition, "I will revolutionize the domestic and international resource circulation ecosystem with Atron's robot solution."

Reporter Park Junghyun

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