S Korea to double spending on AI, chips next year

President Lee Jae-myung's budget speech outlined a significant increase in South Korea's investment in AI and semiconductors, nearly doubling this year's allocation. The 21.3 trillion won (US$16 billion) expenditure is directed towards both economic growth and national defense, signaling a dual-purpose strategy for advanced technology deployment. This broad investment covers foundational areas like data centers and extends to advanced applications such as robotics.

A core objective of this increased spending is to modernize the military, aiming to establish "integrated manned and unmanned systems based on AI, robots and drones." This vision points to a future where human operations are augmented or supported by autonomous and semi-autonomous technologies, enhancing capabilities. This initiative is contextualized by North Korea's recent tests of weapons, including a precision-guided torpedo system and a hypersonic missile, which it stated used AI technology.

Beyond military applications, the investment includes 4.7 trillion won for "frontier AI development projects" to cultivate a "world-leading" national AI model, viewed as a strategic asset. This aligns with broader public-private partnerships announced earlier in the year, which involve expanding chip production hubs, establishing robotics research centers, and building gigawatt-scale AI data centers, alongside substantial corporate investments from Samsung and SK Hynix.