South Korea Aims for 10,000 GPUs to Lead Global AI Innovation Race

CIO Tech Outlook Team | Monday, 17 February 2025, 14:16 IST

  • No Image

In a bid to be on the frontlines of the global AI race, South Korea announced that it would secure 10,000 high-performance GPU cards by the end of the year. Acting South Korean President Choi Sang-mok said that the ongoing competition in AI is changing from one that is fought between companies to one of competition between nations in the realm of innovation. Using public-private cooperation, the government plans to procure the GPUs to support early operations at the national AI computing center.

"As competition for dominance in the AI industry intensifies, the competitive landscape is shifting from battles between companies to a full-scale rivalry between national innovation ecosystems", said South Korea's acting President, Choi Sang-mok.

In October, the U.S. imposed further restrictions on AI-chip exports, limiting access to many countries while exempting 18 nations including South Korea. The rules, particularly in respect of two key variables-the complexity of the model being trained, the size of the dataset being used, and the length of time a model is trained-have dictated the ease of availability of those GPUs.

The government is yet to choose the exact GPUs as well as finalize its budget but aims to settle on that and its partnerships with the private sector by September. With American chip supplier Nvidia covering also about 80% of the worldwide GPU market and facing rising demand for its AI-optimized processors, the country is under pressure from without and within.

OpenAI is closing in on its first in-house AI chip, which will likely be manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in the near future. Reproduced by Chinese startups such as DeepSeek in pursuit of computational efficiency rather than pure processing power, the gap potentially narrowed between Chinese AI chips and their more advanced US counterparts, adding fuel to the AI arms race.

🍪 Do you like cookies?

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Read more...