A select team of five has been narrowed down to participate in the government-led independent artificial intelligence (AI) foundation model project. The Ministry of Science and ICT emphasized that the selection criteria for the elite team were thoroughly verified based on merit, without any allocation criteria for large corporations or startups.
On the 4th, the Ministry of Science and ICT held a press conference at the Seoul Government Complex and announced the selection of five elite teams to kick off the 'Independent AI Foundation Model' project: ▲ Naver Cloud ▲ Upstage ▲ SK Telecom ▲ NC AI ▲ LG AI Research Institute.
The teams selected this time will receive a total of 200 billion won in government support, which includes high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), data, and labor costs.
Specifically, all five teams will receive support for data. The government plans to jointly purchase and process 10 billion won worth of data, considering the data providers secured in advance and the common data demands requested by each elite team, starting from September this year.
Additionally, the government will provide an extra support of 2.8 billion won per team to build and process specialized datasets according to each team's strategy, and will also support broadcasting and video-based learning data worth 20 billion won.
The elite teams of Upstage, NC AI, and LG AI Research Institute will receive support for GPUs. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to negotiate with each elite team to provide either 512 B200s or 1,024 H100s this year.
SK Telecom and Naver Cloud were selected as the GPU rental suppliers for this project and are excluded from the list of beneficiaries. They will be able to receive support starting in the second half of next year when the GPU rental business ends. SK Telecom will supply B200s to two teams, and Naver Cloud will supply H100s to one team.
Only Upstage has applied for talent support expenses among the selected elite teams. The government plans to support the expenses needed for attracting excellent foreign researchers, as well as research expenses that Upstage aims to incur.
The government plans to reflect on the opinions raised during this announcement evaluation to finalize the scope of the business and the details of support for the five elite teams after reviewing and adjusting the project budget. It also noted that feedback will be provided to teams that were not selected to support their future development.
By the end of this year, the government plans to reduce the number of supported teams from five to four after the first phase evaluation at the end of December, based on the AI foundation models developed and secured by the elite teams. Additionally, it has announced plans to establish a system that allows the public to evaluate and verify the performance of AI models.
Minister Bae Kyung-hun of the Ministry of Science and ICT said, "The bold challenge of this project is just the beginning and will serve as the starting point for 'everyone's AI.' The government will actively support the leap of domestic AI corporations and the expansion of the sovereign AI ecosystem." Below is a Q&A with a Ministry of Science and ICT official.
-Large corporations, telecom companies, and startups have been equally selected. Was there any allocation criteria?
"No. This project is aimed at selecting teams that can actually enhance the strength of domestic corporations and have a strong impact in the global market. It was not a project that allocated support considering large corporations, academia, or startups."
-What were the key criteria that distinguished those who passed and failed?
"The evaluation criteria are disclosed in the proposal guidelines. The government plans to find a way to support teams ranked 6th to 10th, as well as the other five teams that initially applied, even if it means planning additional projects. I believe there are ample opportunities to support not only foundation models but also specialized models and other methods."
-What are the plans for future phase evaluations and public tests?
"We plan to conduct phase evaluations every six months, reducing from five to four by the end of this year, and from four to three in the first half of next year. A specific plan for the public contest will be announced separately."
-Are there plans to disclose rankings and scores? Until when will applications for grievances from rejected teams be accepted?
"It is difficult to disclose rankings and scores according to regulations. The grievance application process is set to be open for 10 days, and applications can be submitted from today for 10 days. Grievance applications will be accepted if there are significant defects in the evaluation process."
-What does the 'from scratch' (basic stage) standard emphasized in the evaluation items refer to?
"Our data, the architecture or structure created with our independent technological capabilities, and other considerations were all taken into account. The experiences and the openness of these aspects were evaluated comprehensively."
-What are the plans for data resource allocation?
"There are generally two main plans. The first is to jointly purchase data, and the second is to provide support for building datasets for each team. Concerning joint data purchases, nothing has been decided yet. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to conduct joint purchases while negotiating with the elite teams."
"We have opened recruitment for suppliers from June 23 to July 21, and we are currently negotiating with various national public institutions. We will actively seek to support the requested data from each elite team as much as possible. Moreover, each team will receive separate support for building their datasets."
-The five teams will continue to compete in the future. What evaluation criteria does the government consider important?
"In addition to the current criteria, global benchmarks (performance tests) and benchmark performance tests based on datasets created by the Ministry of Science and ICT, as well as evaluations from the public, will all be comprehensively considered. We plan to establish a separate plan for phase evaluations and communicate it to the teams."