The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to develop an independent AI foundation model that ranks within the top 10 in the world next year, and establish AI colleges and AX innovation research centers centered around four regional science and technology institutes. Additionally, they will promote AI Co-Scientist, the national challenge ‘K-Moonshot’, and strategic technologies such as bio and quantum.
On the 12th, the Ministry of Science and ICT reported next year’s work plan to the President at the Sejong Convention Center. This report aims to make South Korea one of the top three AI countries and a leading science and technology nation, with four major strategies and twelve key tasks. The Ministry has been upgraded to a deputy prime ministerial organization, and a new Science and Technology Ministers’ Meeting chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister for Science and Technology AI has been established.
The Ministry will establish a government-wide, industry-academia-research cooperation system to achieve tangible results from the AX projects promoted by various ministries and jointly utilize AI resources owned by the public and private sectors. Additionally, they will reform government R&D to focus on cooperation and outcomes, and promote national leading projects that quickly demonstrate and link new products applying innovative technologies to public procurement to support the formation of initial markets.
To become one of the top three AI countries, the Ministry is promoting the development and distribution of K-AI, aiming to complete the first phase of development by January next year and provide it as open source within the first half. They will also hold AI competitions and select AI champions, linking prize money with follow-up R&D, commercialization, and startup support. AI education opportunities will be expanded, and an AI highway will be built to respond to the urgent GPU demand of industry-academia-research.