The government is accelerating self-reliance in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure by putting domestic Neural Processing Units (NPU) at the forefront. The plan is to extend the AI Semiconductor achievements accumulated through research and development (R&D) into cloud, physical AI, telecommunications, and security to raise the competitiveness of Korea's overall AI ecosystem.
The Institute of Information & communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) on the 17th held the "2026 performance media day" at the AI·software (SW) maestro training center in Mapo District, Seoul, and unveiled this year's AI·ICT R&D directions.
Since 2020, IITP has continued large-scale investments in next-generation intelligent semiconductors and PIM-based AI Semiconductor, supporting the development of domestic NPUs. As a result, domestic AI Semiconductor corporations including FuriosaAI, Rebellions, DeepX, and Mobillent are assessed to have entered the mass production and overseas expansion stages.
On the day, Hong Jin-bae, IITP president, said, "Domestic AI Semiconductor corporations are achieving real market entries beyond technology validation," and noted, "We will directly push for building a K-cloud based on NPUs to raise the self-reliance of AI computing infrastructure." Rebellions and FuriosaAI succeeded in attracting large-scale investments, and DeepX was introduced as having achieved supply results in overseas markets, including China's Baidu.
IITP sees that as the center of AI competition shifts from training to inference, improving data processing speed and bandwidth will become key tasks. Accordingly, it plans to focus on securing low-power, ultra-low-latency computing technologies and large-scale, scalable AI infrastructure.
The physical AI field was also presented as a key pillar. This year, IITP will begin full-fledged development of a world model and establish a technology framework that links a general-purpose foundation model and AI models applicable to robots and manufacturing sites with a low-power computing platform. In telecommunications, it will promote responses for early 6G commercialization and the development of a network foundation model, and strengthen next-generation network capabilities connecting the ground and space through low Earth orbit satellite-based communications technology.
In AI security, development of a security-specialized AI engine to counter autonomous AI attacks will be pursued. Based on domestic security technology achievements such as homomorphic encryption, IITP is reviewing the establishment of an AI security full-stack "AI cyber shield dome."
Spreading into defense, public, and industrial sites is also a key task. IITP will expand military-industry-academia cooperation hubs to grow the defense AI ecosystem and broaden demonstrations of AI technologies applicable to public safety and industrial sites. President Hong said, "We will strengthen a performance-centered support system so that AI·ICT R&D achievements lead to industrial growth and tangible changes in people's lives."