🇰🇷 South Korea: The No. 3 in the AI Race?
South Korea has emerged as the third country in the global AI race, after the U.S. and China, according to analysts at Artificial Analysis. Five of the top 30 global AI models now originate from South Korea, marking a rapid ascent from last year when the country didn't have a single entry on the list.
The country's flagship model, K-EXAONE by LG, is on par with OpenAI's gpt-oss 120B and outperforms Europe's strongest model, Mistral Large 3. Alongside LG, models from Naver, Motif Technologies, KT, and Upstage also made it into the global top tier.
💰 How South Korea Overtook Europe
In January, South Korea passed a unified AI Act that mandates state funding for the industry. This year, the government plans to allocate about $7.3B to deploy AI across the public sector and subsidize private companies—more than the annual budget of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.
At the same time, Korean companies have committed $49B over two years to AI development and infrastructure, a figure comparable to China's total venture investment in AI last year. The government also provides guarantees to private players: domestic AI services receive priority in public procurement. By 2030, South Korea aims to deploy AI across 95% of government agencies and 70% of industrial enterprises.
The country is also well positioned on the hardware front. Samsung controls nearly a third of the tight global memory market, while Nvidia has agreed to supply 260,000 GPUs to South Korea for data centers.
❗️ But There Are Problems
Alongside support measures, South Korea's AI Act introduces strict oversight of AI startups, including liability for system safety and mandatory content labeling. In practice, these rules are often tougher for domestic companies than for foreign players.
As a result, some experts warn that Korean companies may avoid complex and risky AI research, redirect resources toward "safe" systems—or even relocate to less regulated markets, such as the United States.
@hiaimediaen
