South Korea To Buy 10,000 GPUs For National AI Hub

The South Korean government is planning to acquire some 10,000 high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) this year to accelerate the development of a national AI computing centre, the Ministry of Science and ICT said.

The move makes South Korea the latest country to launch a national AI infrastructure programme this year, as states jockey for position within the global arms race around the technology.

Acting president and deputy prime minister Choi Sang-mok told the third meting of the AI Computing Infrastructure Special Committee that the government would also acquire an additional 8,000 GPUs to establish a sixth national supercomputer.

AI supercomputer

“As competition for AI supremacy intensifies, the rivalry has shifted from being solely between corporations to a contest between nations, transforming into a race for innovative ecosystems,” said Choi, who is also the minister of economy and finance.

“If the government and private sector unite as one team and leverage AI computing infrastructure, we can become one of the world’s top three AI powerhouses, just as we established our position in the IT sector with broadband networks in the past.”

He said the government would work with the private sector to secure high-performance GPUs and establish the National AI Computing Centre, which is planned to open in 2027.

The meeting was attended by prominent figures from the public and private sector, with presentations by the chief executive of AI start-up Upstage and the director of LG AI Research, underscoring the theme of public-private collaboration.

When it was announced in November of last year South Korea’s National AI Computing Centre was originally planned to delivery 1 exaflop of performance, but private sector investment is expected to expand this to 2 exaflops, the government said.

The facility is to be operated by a special-purpose company with 51 percent public and 49 percent private ownership, with a total projected investment of 2 trillion won (£1.1bn).

The South Korean government has expanded its planned AI budget for this year by 25 percent over last year to 1.8tn won.

International competition

The US last month announced the Stargate project, backed by Oracle, OpenAI, SoftBank and others, which could invest up to $500bn in AI infrastructure in the coming years, while France last week also announced a national AI data centre project.

China also has a long-running project to build out data centre computing power.

But the country’s most recent contribution to the AI scene is start-up DeepSeek, which has gained worldwide attention for models comparable to those from US rivals but which it says were trained for a fraction of the cost.