According to South Korea's *Electronic Times*, the South Korean government is considering extending a program to support the procurement of graphics processing units (GPUs), a key resource for the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Faced with surging demand for high-performance GPUs and the increasingly urgent need to build "sovereign AI," the government believes it must continue to lead efforts to expand the national AI infrastructure. Industry sources indicate that the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) is assessing the capacity of major domestic cloud service providers (CSPs) to deploy more GPUs, aiming to extend its "AI Computing Resource Utilization Enhancement Plan." At the heart of this plan, the government uses public funds to procure GPUs, install them in data centers operated by CSPs, and provide these computing resources to industry, academia, and research institutions. Following an investment of approximately 1 trillion won in the plan last year, the government has invested another 2 trillion won this year, securing the supply of over 20,000 GPUs. The plan was originally scheduled to end this year. However, with the sharp increase in demand for cutting-edge GPUs (such as Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin platform) and the development of autonomous AI models that do not rely on global tech giants becoming a national priority, policymakers believe the need for continued government support is growing.
