On February 16, Acting President of South Korea Choi Sang Mok convened the third meeting of the AI ​​computing infrastructure special committee, where he announced the government's plan to accelerate the AI ​​infrastructure building initiative.

Choi, who is also finance minister, added that South Korea will purchase 8,000 more GPUs to build the sixth supercomputer.

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Acting President of South Korea Choi Sang Mok wants the country to become one of the world's top three AI leaders. Photo: Newsis

According to Mr. Choi, as the AI ​​race becomes increasingly intense, competition has shifted from individual enterprises to national scale, into a race for innovation ecosystems.

“If the government and the private sector unite as one team and take advantage of AI computing infrastructure, we can become one of the world's top three AI powers, just as we established our position in the IT field with broadband networks in the past,” the acting president said.

The government will cooperate with the private sector to purchase high-performance GPUs, accelerating the launch of the National AI Computing Center, scheduled to open in 2027, Mr. Choi stressed.

The South Korean government’s latest initiative comes amid a global push to bolster AI capabilities, with countries like the United States and France announcing large-scale projects, highlighting the importance of AI computing infrastructure as a key factor in determining national AI competitiveness.

The National AI Committee was established in September 2023, bringing together leaders from ministries, academic institutions, and businesses to discuss emerging AI technologies and promote infrastructure development.

The National AI Computing Center is expected to have a computing power of 1 exaflop, equivalent to one billion billion floating-point calculations per second.

The initial capital for the project is 400 billion won ($277 million). A special company will be established with 51% public and 49% private ownership. The total investment could reach 2 trillion won.

South Korea plans to increase its annual AI budget by 25 percent to 1.8 trillion won in 2025. The government also plans to introduce a cross-ministerial plan to strengthen the nation's AI capabilities.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, the government is well aware of the rapid changes in technology and markets, and plans to regularly review progress through a special committee.

(According to Korea Herald)