Korea bets W4.7tr on frontier AI

What happened: South Korea plans to split its homegrown AI program into two tracks: a frontier model project and a separate industrial deployment effort. A new competition will open beyond the current finalists. Key numbers: 4.7 trillion won ($3.49 billion) proposed government investment. About 29,000 GPUs to be allocated. Why it matters: The ministry says 1,000 GPUs per team is not enough to catch up with frontier-class models. Ryu said competing head-on with the largest US AI companies would be unrealistic, but Korea could target a model competitive with leading Chinese open models.

South Korea plans to split its homegrown AI program into two tracks: a frontier model project and a separate industrial deployment effort. A new competition will open beyond the current finalists.

The ministry says 1,000 GPUs per team is not enough to catch up with frontier-class models. Ryu said competing head-on with the largest US AI companies would be unrealistic, but Korea could target a model competitive with leading Chinese open models.