South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT on July 27 began piloting an AI-powered conversational search for the National Research Facilities and Equipment Information System (ZEUS), letting researchers locate and book specialized equipment by describing their experiment or analysis needs instead of memorizing exact equipment names.
What ZEUS does
The ZEUS platform, managed across government ministries, aggregates information on research facilities and equipment built with public R&D budgets. It supports shared use among research institutes, universities, and companies, making expensive or rare machines available to teams that would otherwise have no access.
Conversational search replaces keyword hunting
The new AI service moves beyond simple keyword lookups. A researcher who does not know the precise model of a spectrometer can instead tell the system, for example, that they need to measure protein binding kinetics. The AI then suggests matching equipment, shows availability and locations, and lets the researcher proceed straight to reservation.
The ministry expects the AI search to cut the time scientists spend tracking down equipment and to increase the use of existing national research assets. Hong Sun-jeong, director general of the Performance Evaluation and Policy Bureau, said, "By introducing AI search, we will expand the joint use of research facilities and equipment and reduce the time and inconvenience researchers face in finding equipment."
Pilot phase and full rollout
The pilot runs on KT's private cloud infrastructure. The ministry will gather user feedback and search data to improve recommendation accuracy and refine features before the full launch planned for December. For the full service, the ministry will deploy dedicated high-performance GPUs to speed up response times and stabilize the platform.
Why this matters for research scientists
The tool targets a common research bottleneck: finding and booking specialized equipment often means browsing catalogs and coordinating with facility managers. The AI search aims to cut that time by letting scientists describe what they need in their own words. For those looking to strengthen their own ability to use AI in scientific work, focused training is available through the AI Learning Path for Research Scientists.
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