With a total budget of 250 billion won allocated for the 'AI for All' project next year, each of the three selected consortia will receive 10 billion won in operating costs.
According to the 'Global AI Frontier Lab' project proposal obtained by Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Lee Jeong-heon's office from the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 4th, the Ministry has allocated 250 billion won annually for the 'AI for All' project starting next year through 2030.
As this is the first year of the project, 512 physical GPU (graphics processing unit) units have been assigned to the three companies selected for the 'AI for All' consortium: Kakao, SK Telecom, and KT. Starting next year, 170 billion won out of the 250 billion won budget will be allocated as GPU rental fees for the three consortia. It is expected that by the end of this year, once the three consortia develop AI agent services for all citizens, the borrowed GPUs will be used for inference in those services.
A Ministry of Science and ICT official stated, "This year, no budget was allocated, so we provided physical GPUs as support. Next year, instead of physical support, we will provide rental costs for GPUs to enable operation of 'AI for All' services."
Earlier, during a briefing on the budget, the Ministry of Science and ICT revealed that it has secured funding sufficient to lease approximately 2,000 units based on the B200 standard. Based on the monthly rental fee for B200 (6.6 million won), it appears that around 2,100 units can be leased. The Ministry explained this scale would allow approximately 10 million individual users annually to access the service.
The three consortia operating 'AI for All' will each receive 30 billion won for AI service operation, management, and performance enhancement. This amounts to 10 billion won per consortium. The budget allocated to each consortium will be divided between the lead company and participating companies through consultation. In the case of the Kakao consortium, a total of 15 companies are involved; the SK Telecom consortium includes 20 companies, and the KT consortium has 17 companies.
Based on last year's survey results on internet usage, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that approximately two-thirds of citizens have experienced AI services, with generative AI users accounting for 44.5% (about 23 million people). However, since there are still citizens unable to use AI services, and most rely on free versions of foreign AI services, the Ministry has launched efforts to develop free AI services accessible to all citizens.
in TECH
