Mon. Dec 23rd, 2024
South Korea To Invest $7 Billion In Ai To Maintain

Sung-joon Cho/Bloomberg/Getty Images

South Korea’s Samsung is the world’s largest memory chip maker.


Seoul
Reuters

South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol said on Tuesday that the country will spend 9.4 trillion won ($6.94 billion) on artificial intelligence by 2027 as part of efforts to maintain its world-leading position in cutting-edge semiconductor chips. announced that it would invest.

The announcement also includes a separate 1.4 trillion won fund to foster AI semiconductor companies, and the US, where South Korea is similarly providing massive policy support to strengthen its semiconductor supply chain. , as the country seeks to keep pace with countries such as China and Japan. my own lawn.

Semiconductors are an important foundation of South Korea’s export-driven economy. Chip exports in March reached a 21-month high of $11.7 billion, accounting for nearly a fifth of Asia’s fourth-largest economy’s total exports.

“The current semiconductor competition is an industrial war and an all-out war between nations,” Yun told a meeting of policymakers and semiconductor industry executives on Tuesday.

The South Korean government said in a statement that by securing investments and funds, it plans to significantly expand research and development of AI chips such as artificial neural processing units (NPUs) and next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips.

South Korean authorities will also promote the development of next-generation artificial general intelligence (AGI) and safety technologies that go beyond existing models.

Yun has set a goal for South Korea to become one of the top three countries in AI technology, including chips, by 2030 and capture a share of more than 10% of the global system semiconductor market.

“Just as we have conquered the world with memory chips in the past 30 years, we will write a new semiconductor myth with AI chips in the next 30 years,” Yun said.

Yun also said that the recent earthquake in Taiwan, a world leader in semiconductors, has had a limited impact on Korean companies at this point, but instructed them to be fully prepared for any uncertain situation. did.