Professor Kiyun Yu specializes in spatial information systems and designs and develops land, urban, and vehicle information systems essential to smart cities. His recent work integrates AI so that information systems can answer complex spatial questions beyond the reach of conventional large language models. The goal is to enable AI to learn from hundreds of digital maps and extensive statistical datasets held by public and private organizations and generate spatially grounded answers.

For example, a real-estate query can locate and display a building or parcel within a three-dimensional city model and analyze it together with relevant statistics. He leads a major nationally funded research program to develop these core technologies. Professor Yu studied at Yonsei University and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has served as Associate Dean for External Affairs at SNU's College of Engineering, President of the Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science, and Director General of the National Geographic Information Institute.