Government Leadership Team with Practical AI Experience Assembled
Independent AI Capabilities Directly Linked to National Security and Competitiveness
Fierce Global Competition... LLM Development and Talent Cultivation
"Even if it is difficult and time-consuming, companies that chose self-reliance have been selected."
As figures from domestic companies that have developed their own foundation models?such as Naver's HyperCLOVA X and LG AI Research's Exaone?emerge as the nation's AI control tower, expectations are rising that the "sovereign AI" policy will gain momentum. Following Ha Jungwoo, AI Future Planning Chief, and Bae Kyunghoon, Minister of Science and ICT nominee, the presidential office recently appointed Ryu Jemyoung, former Director of Network Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, who has experience in laying the groundwork for AI policy, as the Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT. This is seen as completing the leadership lineup.
An AI industry official said, "Since the Lee Jaemyung administration has chosen 'sovereign AI,' which aims to build an AI ecosystem independently, deploying people with hands-on experience and a deep understanding of the field will give sovereign AI greater traction."
In particular, on June 27, the Ministry of Science and ICT held a briefing session to explain its public-private partnership AI foundation model project and encouraged the participation of AI companies and institutions. The government plans to select five elite domestic teams and then narrow them down through a survival evaluation process. Once a globally competitive, independently developed AI foundation model is created, it will be released as open source and used as "AI for everyone."
Currently, companies with their own AI models?including LG AI Research, Naver, Upstage, NC AI, ESTsoft, Konan Technology, and Twelve Labs?have expressed their intention to participate in the project. A representative from NC AI, the AI-specialized subsidiary of NCSoft, said, "The most important factors in the AI foundation model project are whether you have the experience and capability to build a model at a global level, and whether you have the will to make it available to the entire nation. We plan to release our self-developed LLM (large language model) as open source so that everyone can use it freely, thereby increasing the social benefits of AI technology advancement."
The Global "Sovereign AI" Boom... Investment in Costs and Talent
This is closely related to the fierce global competition to build sovereign AI. While the AI technology race was previously dominated by the United States and China, which have relatively advanced capabilities, now each country is clearly determined to achieve self-sufficiency through sovereign AI. Independent AI capabilities are directly linked to national security and competitiveness.
Saudi Arabia has established an AI-specialized company called Humane under its sovereign wealth fund. Recently, Humane formed a partnership with the AI coding assistant "Replit" to build a localized Arabic-based AI coding agent. The goal is to develop an agent in the national language, not English, so that everyone?from students to professionals?can use it. In addition, by using domestic cloud infrastructure, they aim to guarantee data sovereignty, and both companies plan to develop programs to nurture the next generation of AI developers. Through these efforts, Saudi Arabia aims to become a leading nation in AI software development.
The United Arab Emirates appointed the world's first dedicated Minister of AI and, through a government-affiliated research institute, released the large language model "Falcon" as open source. As of last year, India invested $1.25 billion (about 1.7 trillion won) to accelerate the development of its AI ecosystem. The United Kingdom, through its "AI Opportunity Action Plan" announced last year, is diversifying talent pipelines in the AI field?such as scholarships, lifelong education, and hackathons?to solidify its status as an AI hub in Europe.
Bae Youngja, a professor at Konkuk University, stated, "Each country faces the challenge of strengthening advanced technology capabilities while pursuing national prosperity and security," and added, "Korea must significantly expand and supplement its investment in AI infrastructure and talent."
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