Deputy PM Koo Yoon-cheol Declares Korea's Leap Forward as AI Hub

Deputy Prime Minister Koo Yoon-cheol announced on the 16th (local time) in Washington his goal to make Korea the center of global artificial intelligence (AI) technology development. The establishment of a Korean AI hub is taking shape through close cooperation with international organizations, including the World Bank's (WB) initiation and agreements from six UN agencies, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to establish AI bases within Korea.

Deputy Prime Minister Koo proposed the development of Small Language Models (SLMs) based on proprietary data as a Korean-style AI model. This strategy aims to secure a differentiated competitive edge against the United States, which focuses on Large Language Models (LLMs) requiring vast land and power resources.

Once the Middle East conflict concludes, Korea's AI and energy transitions are expected to accelerate rapidly. Investments are particularly anticipated in the memory semiconductor, High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), and power/sensor semiconductor sectors.