Doosan Group Chairman Park Jeong-won and Vice Chairman Park Ji-won look at items on display at Doosan pavilion at CES 2020 in Las Vega on Jan. 8.

Doosan Group has teamed up with global IT juggernaut Microsoft to expand the market of drones powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which are considered a next-generation form of energy.

The collaboration may be construed as the two companies’ joint efforts to release advanced products outfitted with technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution to advance into the global drone market.

Doosan Mobility Innovation signed a deal with Microsoft to develop hydrogen fuel cell solutions at CES 2020 in Las Vegas on Jan. 10. Among those on hand at the signing ceremony were DMI President Lee Doo-soon and Senior Executive Vice President Woo Mi-young of Microsoft Korea.

Under the deal, the two companies will develop drone software and monitoring solutions so they can obtain synergetic effects in combining AI and IoT technologies and drone and co-sell them to tap the drone market.

The collaboration is designed to ensure digital transformation in the hydrogen fuel cell sector, one of Doosan Group’s new growth engines, and enhance competitiveness in the industrial drone market, which is forecast to surge to about 8.5 trillion won by 2025.

Under the agreement, Microsoft’s advanced solutions such as Auzure IoT, machine learning and AI are expected to be adopted.

DMI’s hydrogen fuel cell drones, employing high energy density hydrogen fuel cell technologies, can fly two hours, and if they are combined with Zuure IoT Hub, they are capable of collecting and analyzing huge amounts of data through connectivity with billions of devices.

Doosan Mobility Innovation President Lee Doo-soon and Korea Microsoft Vice President Woo Mi-young pose after they struck a deal to develop a hydrogen fuel cell drone solution on the sideline of CES 2020 in Las Vegas on Jan. 8. (Photos: Doosan Group)

Doosan Group Chmn. Park Demands Outcomes in Digital Transformation Drive

Doosan Group Chairman Park Jeong-won called for a successfully digital transformation effort to make headway this year. Chairman Park suggested 2020’s major tasks as strengthening the profitability of mainstay businesses, aggressively expanding new businesses, and a successful digital transformation.

According to Chairman Park’s analysis, even through geopolitical risks such as U.S.-Chinese trade conflicts and Brexit still linger, and China’s economy is predicted to slow down, the days are coming in which new challenges such as the spread of AI and 5G will be overwhelming.

He stressed the need to take preemptive steps to cope with such unpredictability.

Chairman Park demanded stable a profit structure for mainstay businesses such as construction machinery to overcome uphill battles. He called for everyone to focus on grabbing a bigger piece of the pie in major markets.

He also revealed a plan to strengthen projects to nurture fuel cell batteries, collaborative robots (cobots), and electronics materials.