Minister Yoo Sang-im of the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to visit the United States this week to discuss securing graphics processing units (GPUs) with NVIDIA.
The Ministry of Science and ICT noted that a '4th AI Computing Infrastructure Special Committee' was held under Minister Yoo's chairmanship on the 13th.
The government has recently prepared a supplementary budget of 1.46 trillion won to secure 10,000 advanced GPUs to innovate the domestic artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem. Additionally, a plan to promote GPU acquisition has been submitted to the special committee.
The special committee plans to promote public-private partnerships throughout the entire cycle from GPU purchase, construction, to use, aiming to commence GPU support within the year.
In the initial purchase phase, the plan is to select cloud service providers (CSPs) through a public competition that can quickly secure, construct, and operate advanced, large-scale GPUs. In the construction phase, the plan is to systematically establish the GPUs secured within the existing data center space of the selected CSPs.
In the usage phase, the strategy is to utilize the GPUs built with the national AI computing center while strategically allocating them to domestic industry-academia-research partnerships and national projects.
The plan to promote the acquisition of advanced GPUs will reflect the discussions of the special committee and is scheduled to be finalized at the upcoming Economic Relations Ministers' meeting. Following that, the government will initiate a public competition for private CSPs to collaborate on GPU purchases and construction.
Chairperson Yoo, who led the special committee, said during the opening remarks that 'securing advanced GPUs is the beginning of our country's AI ecosystem innovation,' adding, 'We will do our utmost to secure GPUs within the year through public-private collaboration and to ensure that the expansion of AI computing infrastructure leads to strengthening South Korea's AI competitiveness.'