SEOUL — KT Corporation, South Korea’s leading telecommunications and digital services provider, announced on July 28 that it has successfully completed the "Data Highway" project in collaboration with Amorepacific, the nation’s top beauty and cosmetics conglomerate. The project involved integrating, restructuring, and standardizing seven decades of cumulative research and development assets at Amorepacific’s Research & Innovation (R&I) Center into an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) specialized data ecosystem.
Following the project contract acquisition in December of last year, KT and Amorepacific established a strategic enterprise partnership to build an end-to-end AI data infrastructure. Through this initiative, the two companies achieved four core milestones:
Conversion of Legacy Data into AI-Ready Formats: Transforming 70 years of accumulated cosmetic research assets into machine-readable "AI-Ready Data" optimized for AI processing and interpretation.
Deployment of AI Assistant 'LEMON': Developing a natural language-based custom generative AI research assistant titled LEMON (Lab Efficiency Mode ON) dedicated to cosmetics researchers.
Data-Driven Decision Framework: Establishing a system for rapid, evidence-based scientific evaluation across research, testing, and ingredient selection.
Future-Proof Scalable Infrastructure: Building an expandable technology foundation capable of integrating upcoming AI services, specialized model workflows, and autonomous AI lab agents.
Standardizing 70 Years of Beauty R&D Knowledge
The core emphasis of this transformation project lay in converting millions of research assets accumulated over 70 years at Amorepacific’s R&I Center into standardized, contextually connected data formats.
In cosmetic R&D, data exists across heterogeneous formats—structured chemical database entries, quantitative clinical trial results, raw ingredient safety reports, qualitative lab notebooks, and unstructured scientific research papers. Prior to this project, researchers had to perform manual searches across multiple siloed software systems to gather historical test results or verify formulation stability.
KT worked closely with Amorepacific engineers to unify these structured and unstructured data assets into a coherent, connected knowledge structure. By establishing standardized taxonomy and semantic relationships, the platform enables AI models to search, synthesize, and contextualize disparate scientific information in a single query.
Introducing 'LEMON': Conversational AI for Cosmetic Researchers
Leveraging this unified data foundation, the two companies deployed LEMON (Lab Efficiency Mode ON), a generative AI research assistant created specifically for Amorepacific scientists.
When researchers input queries in conversational natural language regarding compound compatibility, clinical skin reaction logs, raw ingredient characteristics, or past formula iterations, LEMON rapidly scans the underlying AI-Ready Data platform. Rather than outputting mere keyword search links, LEMON synthesizes qualitative and quantitative findings into comprehensive analytical summaries. This streamlines empirical trial-and-error cycles in formula development and significantly shortens time-to-market for new cosmetics products.
Executive & Industry Perspectives
The project serves as a practical blueprint for enterprise AI Transformation (AX) in heavy research-driven industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and consumer retail.
Noh Hyeong-rae, Senior Vice President and Head of the Enterprise Business Division at KT, emphasized the broader strategic significance of the deployment:
"This initiative represents far more than establishing a standard software application; it demonstrates a transformative model where decades of deep domain research assets are converted into high-value AI-Ready Data. Building on the operational successes of this Data Highway deployment, KT will drive AI Transformation (AX) across diverse sector verticals including manufacturing, retail, and enterprise services."
Looking ahead, KT and Amorepacific plan to continuously expand the scope of AI-Ready Data and enhance the research infrastructure to accommodate autonomous AI agents and advanced analytical tools, furthering innovation in beauty and dermatological science.
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