A total of five operators are vying for the government's advanced graphics processing unit (GPU) project, which is being pursued at a scale of 2 trillion won.
According to the government and industry on the 13th, five operators—Naver Cloud, KT Cloud, Samsung SDS, Coupang, and Ellis Group—each participated in the public call for the GPU acquisition, buildout, and operations support project being pursued by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA).
The project is part of the AI highway buildout to leap into the world's top three in artificial intelligence (AI). The focus is to select private corporations that can quickly secure the latest GPUs and build and operate them at scale through clustering.
The government plans to invest a total of 2.08 trillion won to purchase GPU servers and ancillary equipment and supply them to industry, academia, and research.
Going forward, the Ministry of Science and ICT will conduct document compliance checks, presentation evaluations, on-site inspections of data centers, and budget deliberation and adjustment procedures, then finalize the operators and sign agreements in May.
The operators selected in the final round will be announced after the agreements are signed.
After investing 1.4 trillion won last year to secure 13,000 GPUs including the Nvidia B200, the government is continuing large-scale investment this year.
Earlier, the government had notified that corporations wishing to participate in the GPU buildout project must present data center floor space secured, GPU procurement plans, and plans for operating GPU services.