With one billion pairs produced and operations spanning South Korea, Vietnam, China and Indonesia, the South Korean footwear manufacturer is connecting product development and factory execution through AI.
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BUSAN, South Korea & MIAMI — Global footwear manufacturing giant Changshin is stepping up its digital transformation, partnering with US-based Palantir Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: PLTR) to put artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics at the centre of its footwear development and production operations.
Announced on November 5, the partnership marks a new technology drive for the South Korean manufacturer, which employs approximately 80,000 people worldwide and reached a cumulative production milestone of one billion pairs of shoes in April 2025.
Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Busan, Changshin has developed a substantial international manufacturing network, expanding from South Korea into Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Its overseas expansion began with the establishment of its first foreign subsidiary in Vietnam in 1994, positioning the company as a major industrial player in the global footwear supply chain.
Under the partnership, Changshin will deploy Palantir's Foundry data integration and analytics platform and its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) across footwear development and production. The objective is to connect information and workflows throughout the manufacturing chain, from product development and sample-making plans to factory production.
The integration is expected to create an end-to-end data environment in which teams across departments can access a more comprehensive view of operations, coordinate decisions and respond to production variables more quickly.
A key priority is to link decisions made during footwear development with feedback from the factory floor. By connecting these stages, Changshin aims to identify potential production issues earlier, address operational variables promptly and translate accumulated manufacturing experience into capabilities that distinguish the company.
Choongil Nam, CEO of Changshin, said the partnership would provide an opportunity to convert the company's extensive manufacturing expertise into distinctive in-house capabilities by embedding data and AI into its everyday operations.
“We will link decisions made at the development stage with feedback from the production floor to quickly identify and respond to variables in the production process. We will turn the experience we accumulate along the way into an asset and grow it into unrivalled manufacturing competitiveness that is uniquely Changshin’s,” Nam said.
Palantir Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Legal Officer Ryan Taylor highlighted the complexity of the decisions involved in footwear manufacturing, from development and sample planning to factory-floor execution.
The deployment of Foundry and AIP is intended to transform these interconnected processes while building on Changshin's manufacturing expertise and allowing the company to retain control over how AI is applied throughout its operations.
For Changshin, the technology partnership extends beyond the adoption of AI software. It represents an effort to integrate accumulated production knowledge, development decisions and factory feedback into a connected operating system, strengthening its ability to manage manufacturing complexity across its global footwear network.
With a workforce of approximately 80,000 and cumulative output exceeding one billion pairs, Changshin is positioning data and AI as increasingly important components of its next phase of manufacturing competitiveness.
