K-Cloud Project Utilizing Korean AI Semiconductors Passes Preliminary Feasibility Study

Total Project Cost 403.1 Billion KRW, 6-Year Duration
Strengthening AI Competitiveness through Data Center Acquisition
Lee Jong-ho "Will Create a Sustainable AI Ecosystem"

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 26th that the "K-Cloud Technology Development Project Utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Semiconductors," conducted in collaboration with the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP), has passed the preliminary feasibility study.

The total project cost is 403.1 billion KRW (342.6 billion KRW from the national budget), and the project period is from 2025 to 2030 (6 years).

The results of the preliminary feasibility study were confirmed through deliberation and resolution at the 5th National R&D Project Evaluation General Committee meeting held in 2024.

As AI utilization increases, the importance of AI semiconductors and cloud data centers is growing. Accordingly, the government plans to secure core hardware (HW) and software (SW) technologies specialized for low-power, high-performance AI semiconductor cloud data centers through this project.

This is at the core of the 'AI-Semiconductor Initiative' nine technology innovation tasks deliberated and resolved at the plenary meeting of the Science and Technology Advisory Council on April 25, specifically 'K-Cloud 2.0 aiming for AI supercomputing' and 'Next-generation open AI architecture and SW.'

K-Cloud Project Goals and Development Details/Photo by Ministry of Science and ICT

Specifically, the government plans to promote 28 detailed tasks across three strategic areas of domestic AI semiconductor-based data centers: ▲infrastructure and HW ▲data center computing SW ▲AI semiconductor-specialized cloud technology.

By the project completion year of 2030, the goal is to rank within the global top three in AI computing training and inference performance efficiency based on domestic AI semiconductors and to increase the localization rate of AI data centers to 20%.

The government expects this project to contribute to the industrial revitalization of the entire AI-semiconductor value chain, including AI semiconductor companies, system SW companies, cloud companies, and AI companies.

Lee Jong-ho, Minister of Science and ICT, stated, "We will do our best to successfully implement the project to create a sustainable AI ecosystem and achieve technological innovation in AI and AI semiconductors, thereby successfully realizing the 'AI-Semiconductor Initiative.'"