HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering said Tuesday that it developed an artificial intelligence translation technology to support foreign workers.

According to the company, the service named AI Agent was developed using generative AI technology and has been implemented at the HD Hyundai Samho shipyard in Yeongam, South Jeolla Province.

Combined with the shipbuilder's self-developed messaging app Team Up, the AI Agent translates the messages originally written in Korean to a language that a foreign worker has set.

Currently, the service is provided in four languages -- Vietnamese, Uzbek, Nepalese and Thai -- and the company plans to expand the list of translated languages to 11. HD KSOE, the intermediate holdings company under HD Hyundai, said it will implement the AI Agent in all its shipbuilding subsidiaries, such as HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and HD Hyundai Mipo, by the end of this year.

HD KSOE said the AI Agent was developed to solve the problem of using existing translation services as they were insufficient to translate professional terms and industry-related dialects.

The shipbuilder collected 13,000 terms and 4,200 instructional sentences used in the shipbuilding process for the large language model's machine learning.

HD KSOE explained that the AI Agent service is at Level 1 at the moment and will be advanced to two higher stages. Level 2 will allow voice-to-text translation and Level 3 will ultimately offer real-time translation of foreign workers' voices.

"The delivery of clear work orders through smooth communication is an important factor directly connected to guaranteeing the safety of foreign workers," said an HD KSOE official. "We will provide every support we can to make it easier for foreign workers, who are our colleagues and families, to adapt to the worksite."