Seoul: South Korea will acquire 18,000 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) by the first half of next year to enhance the country's artificial intelligence (AI) computing capabilities, the science ministry said Thursday. The government initially plans to secure 10,000 GPUs within this year for the launch of a new national AI computing center in 2027, the Ministry of Science and ICT said in a press release.
According to Yonhap News Agency, separately, it will secure 8,000 GPUs by June next year to establish the country's sixth supercomputer, the release said. The move is aimed at swiftly building up the country's AI infrastructure and turning it into one of three global powers in the field, it said without elaborating.
"Not only companies but also countries are vying for leadership in the AI fields. The government will make a full-scale and speedy investment to strengthen the AI computing infrastructure and foster AI-related talents," Science Minister Yoo Sang-im said in the release. The United States, the European Union, and France have recently announced ambitious investment plans to take the lead in the burgeoning AI market.
Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 730 trillion-won (US$507 billion) joint company, named Stargate, with Texas-based tech firm Oracle, Japan's SoftBank, and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to build an AI data center. The EU and France plan to invest 300 trillion won and 163 trillion won, respectively, in AI fields.
To build the state AI center, the government will have the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) extend low-rate policy loans, worth up to 2.5 trillion won (US$1.7 billion), to private companies to join the construction project, a ministry official said over the phone. "The AI center is scheduled to open in 2027, but the government plans to start service this year to provide timely help to local businesses and researchers in the field," he said.
The government aims to increase the ratio of domestically produced semiconductors used in the upcoming AI center to 50 percent by 2030, the ministry said. GPUs play a crucial role in AI, delivering top-tier performance for AI training and inference. They also provide significant advantages across various applications that require accelerated computing.