{"id":380027,"date":"2026-10-06T08:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=380027"},"modified":"2026-10-06T08:24:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:24:45","slug":"south-korea-proposes-3-49-billion-ai-plan-its-biggest-push-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/south-korea-proposes-3-49-billion-ai-plan-its-biggest-push-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea proposes $3.49 billion AI plan: its biggest push yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korea\u2019s proposed 2027 budget includes a 4.7 trillion won<\/strong> ($3.49 billion) government-backed equity plan, the country\u2019s biggest move so far to build a homegrown frontier AI model that can stand up to the leading Chinese systems.<\/p>\n

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The budget sets up a two-track program<\/strong>. One side would back a top-tier Korean frontier model; the other would push Korean AI adoption faster across the broader economy. Parliament still has to sign off on it. The plan also calls for an open competition, rather than handing the money straight to LG AI Research, SK Telecom, or Upstage, even though those three are currently out in front in the race to build a sovereign model.<\/p>\n\n

For anyone who watches AI policy closely, this one matters. The proposal is roughly nine times larger<\/strong> than South Korea\u2019s earlier 530 billion won ($390 million) pledge to five companies, and Seoul is saying plainly that it wants to catch China\u2019s best open models, not the largest U.S. players.<\/p>\n\n

The budget is likely to draw a tougher fight once it reaches parliament, especially since questions about overlap and transparency<\/a><\/strong> are already on the table. The timing says a lot too: Korean spending on ChatGPT<\/a>-style services passed Netflix in December 2025; in June 2026, Samsung, SK Hynix, and the South Korean government announced a $590 billion chip push; and there was also a separate 2025 infrastructure deal involving Samsung, SK Group, and OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, as Seoul tries to get more control over the software layer alongside the hardware.<\/p>\n

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South Korea\u2019s proposed 2027 budget includes a 4.7 trillion won ($3.49 billion) government-backed equity plan, the country\u2019s biggest move so far to build a homegrown frontier AI model that can stand up to the leading Chinese systems. The budget sets up a two-track program. One side would back a top-tier Korean frontier model; the other … Continue reading “South Korea proposes $3.49 billion AI plan: its biggest push yet”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9350,"featured_media":380026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[6771],"class_list":["post-380027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","content-category-ai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9350"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380028,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380027\/revisions\/380028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380027"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=380027"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=380027"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=380027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}