South Korea to pour $735 bn into developing sovereign AI built on Korean language and data

Ha Jung-woo, head of Naver’s AI Innovation Center, attends a personnel briefing held at the presidential office in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on June 15, where he was appointed as Chief Secretary for AI Future Strategy. /News1

South Korea is entering the intensifying global race for artificial intelligence with a strategy likened to wartime mobilization. On June 15, the presidential office tapped Ha Jung-woo, head of the AI Innovation Center at Naver, as the country’s first-ever senior presidential secretary dedicated exclusively to AI policy. A new AI-focused unit will also be established to support the position.

On the same day, SK Group unveiled plans to build South Korea’s largest AI data center in Ulsan’s Mipo National Industrial Complex in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The companies will jointly invest several trillion won in the project. With these moves—recruiting a leading expert to oversee national AI strategy and expanding critical infrastructure—South Korea is making a concerted push to secure its place among the world’s top three AI powers.

Graphics by Jung In-sung

President Lee Jae-myung has consistently emphasized the importance of AI policy, even naming a 100 trillion-won ($735 billion) investment plan as one of his signature campaign pledges. His AI platform also included a proposal to develop a “sovereign AI” tailored specifically to South Korea’s cultural and historical context. Ha, the newly appointed secretary, has been one of the most vocal proponents of the sovereign AI concept.

In past lectures and media interviews, Ha argued that South Korea needs an AI system trained on its own data, stating, “We need a sovereign AI that has learned from Korea’s culture and history.” He added, “The government should select three to four national AI champions and equip them with at least 5,000 graphics processing units (GPUs).” GPUs are vital components in AI data centers and serve as essential infrastructure in the AI era, but securing high-performance units remains a major challenge in South Korea.

Ha is widely expected to promote a public-private collaboration model for developing sovereign AI, in which the government provides infrastructure support. Under this approach, AI systems developed with public assistance would be released as open-source tools for broader use in society—a core tenet of Ha’s sovereign AI vision.

While President Lee’s campaign pledge garnered attention for its scale, it lacked details on implementation. Questions remain over how the government intends to fund the 100 trillion-won initiative and what sectors will be targeted for investment. Industry experts and AI companies argue that sovereign AI must be tailored to Korea’s strategic industries. “To maximize the impact of the 100 trillion-won investment, sovereign AI must be applied to national priority sectors like semiconductors and biotechnology,” one AI industry official said.