The Ministry of Science and ICT said on the 23rd that, together with the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) and the National Information Society Agency (NIA), it will additionally solicit one elite team to join the independent AI foundation model project. The application period runs through Feb. 12.
The additional selected team may form a consortium centered on domestic AI corporations and institutions. While aiming for performance at 95% or higher compared with the latest global AI models, the elite team must present specific development strategies and methodologies. The Ministry of Science and ICT required capabilities that can meaningfully compete with the three elite teams already selected and, beyond simple model development, can contribute to the growth and expansion of Korea's AI ecosystem.
Evaluation will consist of a document review and a presentation by expert evaluation committee members, selecting teams for which a majority recognizes that the criteria are met. If a majority of the committee members judge that there is no suitable team, an additional selection may not be made. Even in the case of a sole applicant, a selection evaluation will be conducted for the consortium submitted.
The selected elite team will receive resources equivalent to 768 B200 GPUs. The actual quantity may vary slightly. It will receive support equal to that of the existing elite teams, including joint data purchasing and support for building and processing, as well as the designation "K-AI corporation." Corporations that leased GPUs to the government are excluded from GPU support within the project, but support may be available starting around the second half of next year, when the government's purchased units are utilized.
The current elite teams are LG AI Research Institute, Upstage, and SK Telecom. In the second half of this year, computing resources will be expanded to the level of 512 B200 units, and in the first half of next year, to the level of 512 B200 units and 512 H100 units. Considering that SK Telecom is a GPU supplier, it will not receive GPU support for now and may be included as a support recipient starting in the second half of next year.
To provide a development period equal to that of the other elite teams, the Ministry of Science and ICT will push for a stage evaluation around early August. The existing three teams will conduct development from January to June, and the additionally selected team from February to July. While maintaining the overall framework of the stage evaluation as benchmark evaluation, expert evaluation, and user evaluation, it will select benchmarks aimed at major global leaderboards and consider strengthening "originality" in the expert evaluation items.