K-water is accelerating its push into global stormwater and disaster-management markets through high-profile artificial intelligence partnerships and international deployments. On 24 October 2025, the company announced a collaboration with OpenAI to codevelop large language models for the water sector, climate-risk forecasting tools, and frameworks for autonomous plant operations, focusing on flood-risk and stormwater analytics. K-water manages one of the most advanced national systems in the world in this area.
This agreement builds on K-water’s digital twin collaboration with Naver, South Korea’s leading internet platform, initially deployed across five cities in Saudi Arabia beginning in 2024. On 7 August 2025, K-water secured a disaster and stormwater management project in Nagai, Japan, further expanding into a region vulnerable to flooding and known for its adoption of advanced risk management technologies.
In June 2025, the utility launched its “AI First Strategy,” committing to integrating AI and digital twins throughout the water-management value chain by 2030. These developments indicate that AI-driven stormwater management has become a primary growth vector for K-water.
