Seoul City Invests 41 Billion KRW in 'Seoul-style R&D'... Largest Ever

Support from Technology Discovery to Market Entry
Sector-Specific Initiatives for Fostering New Growth Industries

The Seoul Metropolitan Government is investing the largest budget ever this year in R&D (research and development) support for new growth industries. This is to respond to the global technological transformation led by artificial intelligence (AI) and to drive future growth engines.

On the 6th, Seoul announced that it will invest a total budget of 41 billion KRW, a 12% increase from last year, in this year's 'Seoul-type R&D support.' The support covers the entire process from discovering innovative technologies to development, demonstration, and market entry.

Started in 2005, the 'Seoul-type R&D support project' is Seoul's representative policy in the R&D field that contributes to securing future leading industries, revitalizing the economy, and creating jobs. To respond to the 4th Industrial Revolution, since 2018, it has focused on supporting technology development in six new growth industries?AI, bio, quantum technology, robotics, fintech, and creative industries?as well as corporate growth, technology demonstration R&D, and technology commercialization.

This year, with the emergence of low-cost, high-performance AI models, AI investment will be expanded across all R&D stages from initial technology development (Pre-R&D) to corporate growth R&D and testbed (Post-R&D). In particular, initial technology development tasks will be focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and AI convergence technology (AI+X) projects, with goals including increasing the AI R&D budget (from 3 billion KRW to 5 billion KRW) and selecting more than 30% AI projects in R&D linked with private investment and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation.

To enhance corporate autonomy during the R&D process, the 'R&D management guidelines' will also be revised. New R&D projects aimed at deregulation will be promoted. Additionally, support will be strengthened to resolve licensing and regulatory issues faced when entering domestic and international markets, and a communication channel with companies will be operated to continuously discover regulatory tasks.

Specifically, 19.5 billion KRW will be invested in fostering the six new growth industries. Regular licensing consultation meetings will be held to promote market entry of bio and medical products, and consulting will be provided for data quality certification necessary for AI development and reliability certification of AI models after development. Support will also be provided for participation in domestic and international events such as the Seoul Robot Show (robotics) and EnterTech Summit 2025 (creative industries).

According to Seoul, the 'Seoul-type R&D support' has also led to increased sales and job creation for small and medium-sized enterprises, venture companies, and startups participating in R&D. Analyzing the results of a total of 884 projects over the past five years, corporate sales amounted to a cumulative 639.6 billion KRW, and 5,957 jobs were created. Ju Yong-tae, Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Economic Office, said, "Deep tech technologies including artificial intelligence are now core technologies leading the future of the global economy and industry. Seoul will provide full support in the R&D field so that it can become a ‘global AI innovation city’ with technological competitiveness and foster the birth of numerous unicorn companies."