Artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors are driving Korea's academic competitiveness in core and emerging technologies, while nuclear power shows both lower qualitative impact and slower growth compared with the scale of its publications, an analysis found.
According to the report "Analysis of academic competitiveness in five fields among U.S. core and emerging technologies," published on the 12th by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Korea's 2016–2025 rankings by number of papers were semiconductor 4th, AI and nuclear power 7th each, biotechnology 8th, and quantum information 14th.
Korea's share of global papers was highest in semiconductors at 6.49%, followed by nuclear power at 5.36%, biotechnology at 3.38%, AI at 2.97%, and quantum information at 2.43%.
By contrast, the FWCI indicator, which reflects the qualitative impact of papers, showed large differences. FWCI measures how often a paper is cited compared with similar papers worldwide in the same field. AI scored the highest at 1.60, followed by biotechnology at 1.40 and semiconductors at 1.26, all above the world average of 1. Quantum information was 0.94, and nuclear power was 0.56. By rank, AI was 8th, biotechnology 13th, semiconductors 14th, quantum information 15th, and nuclear power 18th.
In particular, nuclear power had the largest gap between research scale and qualitative competitiveness among the five fields. It ranked 7th worldwide in number of papers but only 18th in citation impact.
Growth trends also highlighted the contrast between AI and nuclear power. The number of AI papers increased an average of 21.5% annually, exceeding the global average of 17%. In contrast, nuclear power rose only 0.8% per year on average, below the global average of 3.1%.
The report suggested tailoring support strategies by field characteristics. It said AI and semiconductors should receive support to maintain their current competitiveness, while nuclear power needs a strategy to boost qualitative impact based on its existing research scale.