South Korea is increasing investment in the AI field.
Last week, Meta Platform CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Japan, South Korea and India. Zuckerberg last visited South Korea in 2014. During his stay in South Korea, he met with political and business representatives. How to strengthen cooperation in the field of extended reality (XR) devices and the currently hot field of artificial intelligence (AI) is the focus of Zuckerberg's trip.
According to the "Digital Strategy" released by the South Korean government last year, South Korea aims to become the world's third largest artificial intelligence power after the United States and China by 2027.
ai cooperation is a key topic
According to information from the South Korean Presidential Office, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yue met with Zuckerberg at the Yongsan Presidential Palace in Seoul last Thursday. During the 30-minute meeting, the two parties discussed their vision for an open AI digital ecosystem and ways to strengthen meta's cooperation with Korean companies.
During the meeting, Yin Xiyue said that South Korea has the world's leading memory chip company, which is an important part of the artificial intelligence system, and called for close cooperation between the two sides. At the same time, South Korea has a variety of smart electronic products, wearable devices and smart cars, and can become a platform for meta AI applications.
Yin Xiyue also introduced to Zuckerberg the Korean government’s cultivation of the Metaverse industry in recent years. The South Korean government has turned its attention to the Metaverse as early as 2021. As far as local governments are concerned, the Seoul government issued policies and plans that year, announcing that it would build a "Seoul Metaverse Platform" within five years. The Korean government has even established the "Metaverse Alliance" in order to be at the forefront of the world in the formulation of Metaverse policies. Yin Xiyue also said that if meta jointly develops XR headsets with Korean companies that have strengths in the hardware field, there will be huge synergies.
Zuckerberg mentioned dependence on South Korea's parts manufacturing industry during the meeting, especially Samsung's position in semiconductor manufacturing. At the same time, while in South Korea, Zuckerberg also met with some Korean start-up companies that are expanding in the field of display equipment, as well as executives from Samsung, LG and other companies.
Since June last year, Openai CEO Sam Altman has also visited South Korea. Altman also expressed interest at the time in investing in Korean startups and working with major chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics.
actively deploys
In recent years, the Korean government has been actively deploying in the field of AI. In June last year, the South Korean government introduced a new plan for AI development. According to the plan, the South Korean government will invest 909 billion won (approximately 4.98 billion yuan) in the field of daily AI for all people starting this year to enhance its competitiveness in the AI field.
At the same time, South Korea’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Information and Communications stated that it will deploy 1.02 trillion won (approximately 5.45 billion yuan) in funds for the research and development of artificial intelligence semiconductors by 2027. In this regard, South Korea's Minister of Science, Technology, Information and Communications Lee Jong-ho said: "Artificial intelligence not only promotes the development of digital industries such as cloud computing and metadata, but is also a key factor in greatly improving the productivity of traditional industries such as manufacturing and logistics. We will spare no effort to Help South Korea secure world-class AI semiconductor technology, leverage our memory semiconductor capabilities to advance AI semiconductors in phases by 2030, develop additional applications in data centers, and cultivate AI semiconductor experts."
Korean industry observer Jin Yunjun told China Business News that South Korea's dominant position in the memory chip market and strong AI ecosystem are South Korea's advantages in this global AI competition. For example, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are the two largest memory chips in the world. Manufacturers have been actively investing in the research and development of AI. "Semiconductor companies and their huge industrial chains are the backbone of the Korean economy and are known as the 'rice of the industry' in Korea. Nowadays, developed economies such as the United States, the European Union, and Japan have expanded their investment scale in the AI field, and South Korea, one of the semiconductor powerhouses, must do its part."
James Lim, senior research analyst at Dalton Investments, also said: "South Korea is in the field of memory chips. Very powerful, and AI does require a lot of memory. South Korea's dominance of the storage market is definitely an advantage."
According to forecasts from market tracking agency Gartner, the global artificial intelligence chip market is expected to reach US$86.1 billion by 2026, growing at an annual rate of 16%.
At the beginning of this year, Yin Xiyue announced that South Korea is building the world's largest semiconductor super cluster. It is expected that The total investment scale reaches 622 trillion won. The focus of the plan is to build a total of 16 by 2047, centered on cutting-edge products such as 2-nanometer process chips and high-bandwidth memory chips, led by private companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. A base of semiconductor production facilities.
The latest data shows that thanks to the increase in demand in the AI field, in the past February, South Korea’s chip exports increased by 66.7% year-on-year, second only to October 2017 (69.6%).
At the same time , the South Korean government also stated that it will strengthen AI ethics and trustworthiness to prevent potential risks and side effects caused by the rapid development of AI technology.
