"Li Zaiming just took office and faced huge issues with technical funding support such as artificial intelligence (AI)." South Korea's Nocut news website reported on the 7th that Lee Jaiming vowed during his campaign to "start the era of 100 trillion won (100 won is approximately 0.5 yuan) in artificial intelligence" and proposed to "leap" in this field to become the top three in the world. On the 6th local time, Li Zaiming reorganized the president's staff team and established new positions such as chief secretary of economic growth and chief secretary of AI, once again highlighting his importance to AI. But in light of the actual situation of South Korea's relevant talent reserves, R&D budgets, etc., many Korean media raised questions, "If you want to fulfill the AI commitment of the new president, it is time to have specific measures."
According to the South Korean media World Journal, South Korean Presidential Secretary General Kang Hoon-sik said at a press conference on the 6th: "As the 'command tower' that coordinates future strategies, the Presidential Office will more clearly establish a national policy direction centered on AI." He emphasized, "This reorganization is a turning point to redefine the national growth momentum and ensure South Korea's dominance in global AI competition." However, the highly-watched AI chief secretary candidate was not announced on the same day. According to South Korea's "OhmyNews" website, the presidential office said that "the follow-up personnel arrangements will be announced soon."
Cultivating the AI industry is one of Li Zai-ming’s important commitments to the new president. During the election campaign, he said that he would start the "100 trillion won era of artificial intelligence", and specific measures include: building AI data centers and building an "artificial intelligence highway"; supporting the research and development of large language models and lightweight models; cultivating national-level AI companies, promoting public-private cooperative investment; building high-quality AI training data clusters, etc. He also promised to promote the AI for All project, aiming to ensure that all citizens can enjoy basic artificial intelligence services.
However, the current stimulus measures cannot quickly boost market participation. South Korea's News Agency reported that the national AI computing center project, which was originally planned to invest 2.5 trillion won to build, has recently encountered the first round of bidding. The South Korean Ministry of Science and Technology Information and Communications has extended the bid deadline to June 13 in order to attract companies to participate. Based on a survey, the news agency found that there are currently three concerns among Korean companies about the new policy: structural imbalance in basic research and application development, the current situation of insufficient participation of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the situation where South Korea has relatively weak voice in the international technology field. According to the World Journal, as the United States provides several times of its salary, South Korea's AI talents continue to flow out, and the government is considering attracting high-end overseas talents to return through special treatment policies.
Lee Sung-ye, a professor at the Graduate School of Technology Management at Korea Goryeo University, said: "Although grand plans such as '100 trillion won investment' have been proposed, there is still a lack of specific implementation plans. Talent cultivation requires long-term investment. The top priority is to clarify the path to overseas talent introduction and how to develop a 'world-class big language model' that is different from existing Korean companies (such as NAVER and LG)."
Source: Global Times
