Hyundai Shows How Innovation Centers Don’t Have to Be Isolated from the Real World

Opened in November 2023, the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore (HMGICS) examines and tests how the use of technologies such as robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and digital twins can improve the manufacturing operations of Hyundai’s automobile facilities. HMGICS isn’t detached from the day-to-day reality of producing automobiles. The center puts its innovations into practice, producing 30,000 Electric Vehicles (EVs) (e.g., the Hyundai IONIQ 5, the autonomous IONIQ 5 robotaxi, and its plans to add the IONIQ 6 and Purpose Built Vehicles (PBVs)) annually. Furthermore, the center has a close collaboration with the company’s Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (HMGMA) in the state of Georgia and via this collaboration, HMGMA is moving toward software-defined manufacturing. Hyundai announced in November 2025 that the innovations introduced in Georgia will be scaled across the company’s other facilities, including those producing the Kia and Genesis brands.

Often, innovation centers are detached from the reality of manufacturing operations. Hyundai’s approach shows how having an intermediary facility to refine the deployment of technologies prior to scaling across the other manufacturing facilities is a model that other manufacturers, not just automobile manufacturers, could replicate.

HMGMA currently produces 300,000 vehicles annually and plans to ramp up production to 500,000 in 2031. The production lines are moving from conveyor belt-based operations to cell-based operations where the tools and parts come to the worker at the appropriate time.

The innovation center in Singapore works with HMGMA to reconfigure and retool the operations. A critical program to support the objective is to utilize the digital twins originally developed in Singapore to simulate the manufacturing operations, as well as introducing AI for predictive maintenance and machine vision for quality control, plus robotics to support intralogistics functions.

HMGMA has introduced a digital command center that is a digital replica of the factory floor and supports simulations to optimize the operations. The efforts to ramp up production are underpinned by investments in private 5G and an industrial data fabric to support the digital twins. The investments not only support efforts to increase production, but also add flexibility with the facility able to produce vehicles with one of ten different powertrains.

By working in tandem, the innovations developed in Singapore have real-world application, and the facility in Georgia gets the benefit and ability to refine the solutions ahead of others.

The challenges for automobile manufacturers continue with demand for EVs plateauing, and both manufacturers and their suppliers having to navigate the impact of tariffs. The retooling efforts in Georgia aim to accommodate the productions needs of electric, those based on the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), and hybrids.

In order for Hyundai’s facility in Georgia to successfully retool and optimize production to meet the increased production goals, it will require creating new jobs (data analysts and maintenance technicians for robots) and upskilling of existing roles; all of which require workforce transformation programs. Hyundai has implemented Manufacturing Excellence Expos and in-house training programs, and also encouraged staff to contribute their own ideas to the transformation programs. Representative from South Korea were also brought in to facilitate the introduction of new operating models.

To be successful, workforce transformation programs require a mix of input from the local manufacturing facility to get buy in, combined with standards across the facilities. Another aspect is to not only have digital teams, but also have them consist of individuals from different facilities and disciplines (for insights on how aerospace and defense firms resource digital leadership teams, please refer to ABI Research’s Digital Transformation Benchmarking Index for Large Aerospace and Defense Manufacturers presentation (PT-3777). In addition to multi-disciplinary teams, manufacturers must focus on the role the programs play in achieving the objectives, and not get bogged down in proofs of concept, instead identifying what success ultimately looks like.