AI Professor Shortage... Universities Filling Gap with Computer Science Majors [AI Talent Development Red Light]

Korea Faces Crisis in AI Education
Struggles to Secure Faculty Members
China Offers "Whatever It Takes"... Korean AI Departments Lag Behind in Salaries and Infrastructure

Ewha Womans University struggled to secure faculty members to teach students when it newly established the Department of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2022. Considering the enrollment quota, eight professors were needed, but only one full-time professor was secured that year. Ultimately, they had no choice but to adopt a stopgap measure by having a professor from the Department of Computer Engineering serve concurrently. Since then, the number of full-time professors increased to four by hiring one in 2023 and two last year, but it is still insufficient compared to other departments.

An Ewha Womans University official said, "Experts who obtained master's or doctoral degrees related to AI overseas find it difficult to join domestic universities as faculty due to insufficient salaries and treatment."

Recently, universities have been opening AI-related departments in response to the government's policy to expand enrollment quotas in advanced fields. However, the bigger challenge is the lack of professors to teach students, which is more problematic than the declining school-age population.

According to the Ministry of Education on the 10th, 34 universities nationwide applied to increase the enrollment quota of AI departments by 946 students in 2023, but only about 20% (195 students) were approved. This was because most applicants failed to meet standards in securing faculty and possessing experimental and practical equipment during the review process.

The most serious issue among these is securing faculty. Equipment can be acquired with budget, but recruiting professors is inherently difficult. The AI department at Ewha Womans University, which secured only one full-time professor, was able to be established because the university chose to reduce enrollment in less popular departments rather than increase the overall admission quota. A Ministry of Education official said, "Although we promised to increase enrollment quotas when establishing departments related to advanced talent development such as semiconductors and bio, universities are not adequately prepared," adding, "It is especially difficult to find high-quality full-time professors for AI departments."

According to the University Establishment and Operation Regulations, for engineering fields, when creating a new department, one faculty member must be secured per 20 students, and two-thirds of them must be full-time professors. However, this applies only when the university increases its overall enrollment quota. In cases like AI departments, where enrollment is adjusted among existing departments, the full-time professor requirement does not apply.

Considering that the AI department has 40 students per grade, totaling 160 students from first to fourth year, eight professors were needed. However, since the full-time professor obligation did not apply, the AI department was able to open with only one full-time professor. Although three more full-time professors were hired over three years, this number remains quite low compared to other departments. For example, the Department of Food and Biotechnology at Ewha Womans University, which has the same annual enrollment quota as the AI department, has nine full-time professors.

Professors evaluate that a shortage of full-time professors makes it impossible to raise research standards. An engineering professor who requested anonymity said, "Engineering fields require many faculty members to run laboratories and conduct research projects," adding, "It is difficult to enhance research quality with the minimum number of staff."

There are no effective incentives to attract AI-related professors. The research environment is poor, and salary levels are low. To conduct AI research, AI semiconductors like NVIDIA chips are necessary, but few universities are willing to purchase chips that cost tens of millions of won each.

Moreover, since there is a high global demand for AI personnel, salaries are skyrocketing, but domestic universities find it difficult to match these salaries due to financial constraints. The salary gap between domestic university faculty and AI researchers at U.S. companies exceeds tenfold. OpenAI in the U.S. offers a starting salary of $866,000 (about 1.26 billion won), and Anthropic offers $855,000 (about 1.25 billion won). In contrast, as of 2020, the annual salary of a full professor at Seoul National University was about 120 million won, and it is known to be at a similar level even five years later.

A domestic university professor said, "New advanced departments like AI and semiconductor departments face greater difficulties in recruiting professors due to the large salary gap with major corporations."

The shortage of professors raises concerns as it may affect the training of AI specialists in Korea. Without hiring high-quality faculty, it is difficult to expect talent development, which inevitably leads to a vicious cycle.

Professor Lee Kyung-jeon of Kyung Hee University's Department of Big Data Applications said, "As China has declared its AI ambitions and invested to surpass the U.S., 40% of major AI international conference papers recently came from China," adding, "For Korea to produce star-level scholars like Liang Yuanfeng of DeepSea, it must significantly increase investment in faculty and research infrastructure."