President Lee Jae-myung said the government will push to establish a "Korean-style In-Q-Tel," a vehicle for direct public investment, to foster cybersecurity as a core national industry. As AI-driven cyber warfare emerges as a key competitive edge in national security, the plan is to nurture promising security and AI corporations, similar to the United States. But Korea's security industry remains modest. While the United States has developed cybersecurity as a national strategic industry, Korea's market growth has been slow under a public sector– and domestic demand–centered structure.
◇ Launch of "Korean-style In-Q-Tel"… creation of a 1 trillion won security fund
At the "strategy meeting to foster future new-security innovation corporations" held at the Blue House on the 26th, President Lee said, "The government will nurture new-security innovation corporations that hold advanced monopoly technologies in AI, drones, cyber defense, and aerospace," adding, "We will build innovative corporations capable of competing with U.S. Palantir, valued at 480 trillion won, and Germany's Helsing, valued at 26 trillion won." Lee also noted, "There have been structural limits for private corporations to enter the security industry ecosystem," and said the state will lead efforts to address those constraints.
To that end, the government said it will set up a Korean-style In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit venture capital firm founded by the U.S. CIA that has identified corporations' advanced technologies and enabled U.S. intelligence agencies and the Ministry of National Defense to deploy them in the field. A representative In-Q-Tel investment is Palantir, an AI cybersecurity company. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said it will each contribute 25 billion won with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration by next year to raise 50 billion won, and build a 1 trillion won fund by 2030.
Palantir, in fact, used In-Q-Tel's early investment as a springboard to grow and listed in 2020. Riding the AI boom, it has emerged as a major beneficiary and, five years after listing, has become a global AI cybersecurity corporation with a market capitalization exceeding 415 trillion won.
By contrast, the domestic security industry's reality is modest. AhnLab, Korea's top-listed security corporation by market capitalization, is valued at about 590 billion won—leaving a gap of 700 times compared with Palantir. Most other listed domestic security firms, excluding AhnLab, hover around 100 billion won in market cap. Among major domestic security corporations last year, those that exceeded 100 billion won in sales on a consolidation basis were ▲AhnLab 267.7 billion won ▲SECUI 165 billion won ▲Igloo Corporation 143.2 billion won.
◇ "Strategic investment in competitive corporations is key… a springboard for overseas expansion, too"
Industry officials say that because the security industry is difficult to grow without institutional government support, the government's move to treat security technology corporations as a national strategic industry and invest directly is significant. Korea's security industry has long faced growth limits due to a public sector– and domestic demand–centered structure and a limited market size. With growth hard to achieve, private investment and research and development (R&D) spending have withered in a vicious cycle, and overseas expansion has been difficult, slowing industry development.
Experts stressed that to overcome these limits, the government should design its investment targets and support methods more strategically. Yeom Heung-ryeol, an emeritus professor in the Department of Information Security at Soonchunhyang University, said, "Because cybersecurity is directly tied to national security, there is a need to identify startups and venture corporations that hold future core technologies and nurture them strategically," adding, "In particular, because AI is both a core technology for security and a means of attack, investment should go to corporations that can develop AI-linked security technologies suited to domestic conditions."
They also noted that support should go beyond simple policy financing to include help with entering global markets. Yeom said, "Because the domestic market alone has growth limits, we need to select corporations that can be competitive overseas and focus investment on them," adding, "If we support them in building supply chain cooperation frameworks with global corporations such as Palantir or Microsoft, our corporations will be able to grow in the world market."