South Korea plans to acquire 18,000 GPUs by mid-2026

South Korea will acquire 18,000 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) by the first half of next year to enhance the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) computing capabilities, the science ministry said on Thursday.

The government initially plans to secure 10,000 GPUs within this year for the launch of a new national AI computing centre in 2027, the Ministry of Science and ICT said in a press release. Separately, it will secure 8,000 GPUs by June next year to establish the country’s sixth supercomputer, reports Yonhap news agency.

The move is aimed at swiftly building up the country’s AI infrastructure and turning it into one of three global powers in the field, it said without elaborating. To build the state AI centre, the government will have the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) extend low-rate policy loans, worth up to 2.5 trillion won (US$1.7 billion), to private companies to join the construction project, a ministry official said over the phone.“The AI centre is scheduled to open in 2027 but the government plans to start service this year to provide timely help to local businesses and researchers in the field,” he said.

The government aims to increase the ratio of domestically produced semiconductors used in the upcoming AI center to 50 percent by 2030, the ministry said. GPUs play a crucial role in AI, delivering top-tier performance for AI training and inference. They also provide significant advantages across various applications that require accelerated computing.

As of the end of 2023, South Korea had approximately 2,000 GPUs, which are crucial for AI development, amid global competition over large-scale AI infrastructure projects, such as the Stargate Project in the United States. The GPUs to be acquired include Nvidia Corp’s H100 and H200.