The government said on the 14th it will select two national AI elite teams by the end of this year. The national AI model project is a core government initiative being pursued with the goal of building an AI foundation model led by Korea.
The National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), which oversees the independent AI foundation model project to select the national AI, said at a briefing by agencies under the information and communications technology (ICT) sector held at the Jungang Post Office in Jung-gu, Seoul, that it plans to select two final AI elite teams by December this year. The agency also said it will secure more than 15,000 advanced graphic processing units (GPUs) this year to support the independent AI elite teams and others.
The government will secure an additional 15,000 units for the National AI Computing Center, which opens in 2028. It is also aiming to establish a special-purpose company (SPC) with the Samsung SDS consortium in June. The agency plans to invest 1 trillion won each in North Jeolla and South Gyeongsang to build a leading model of a Korea-style AI factory based on physical AI by 2030.
Bae Kyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, "Because AI training infrastructure is lacking, an ecosystem needs to be created in which good AI models and services are built with imported GPUs, and the market for domestic Neural Processing Units (NPUs) expands in the service process."