South Korea Rejects AI Development Slowdown, Pledges Accelerated Sovereign AI Efforts
South Korean Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon stated that South Korea cannot afford to slow down AI development, advocating for rapid progress alongside targeted safety measures over heavy regulation. He also announced that the country will soon unveil its next-stage plan for national sovereign AI foundation models. As a global hardware powerhouse benefiting from the AI data center boom via memory giants Samsung and SK Hynix, South Korea's strategy underscores a growing geopolitical divide between leading AI nations calling for caution and catching-up countries pushing for tech sovereignty. This policy stance further aligns South Korea with tech leaders who argue that innovation speed and safety can co-exist without restrictive new laws. South Korea's position contrasts with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's calls to slow frontier AI development for independent oversight, aligning instead with views held by Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia's Jensen Huang. Rather than enacting restrictive laws, the government plans to address risks like deepfakes, cyberattacks, and privacy violations through targeted preventative measures while actively expanding native AI foundation model research.
## BACKGROUND
Foundation models are large artificial intelligence systems trained on vast datasets that serve as adaptable platforms for generative AI applications across various tasks. Developing advanced frontier models requires massive computational infrastructure and high-performance memory hardware, an industry sector where South Korean semiconductor manufacturers play a vital global role.