South Korea AI Model Plan: $3.49B for a Homegrown Rival
South Korea wants a frontier AI model it can call its own, and it is ready to put serious public money behind it. The government plans to commit 4.7 trillion won, roughly $3.49 billion, through state-backed equity investments to build one. The money sits in the proposed 2027 budget, so it is not final yet: parliament still has to approve it.
A second funding track runs alongside the model-building effort. It is meant to push Korean-built models into use across the wider economy, so that domestic AI does not just exist but actually gets used.