The South Korean government announced on Thursday that it plans to distribute over 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) purchased from NVIDIA to small and medium-sized enterprises, startups, academic institutions, and national artificial intelligence (AI) projects starting February next year. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to foster a robust domestic AI ecosystem.
The government recently invested 1.4 trillion won (approximately $947.2 million) to acquire around 10,000 GPUs from NVIDIA, marking the first phase of a plan to purchase 50,000 GPUs by 2030.
These GPUs will be configured into large-scale clusters to support high-speed computing for AI model training and inference. Applications for AI development projects from industry, academia, and research institutions will be accepted online until January 28, with each project eligible for up to 256 H200 GPUs or 128 B200 GPUs.
Additionally, the government stated that approximately 6,000 B200 GPUs scheduled for later delivery will be allocated to a national initiative aimed at developing a domestic AI foundational model.
Earlier, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced in late October that the company would collaborate with the South Korean government and major corporations like Samsung Electronics to deploy 260,000 GPUs in South Korea, establishing a large-scale AI factory.
Under this plan, the South Korean government will utilize over 50,000 GPUs to build a sovereign AI platform, while Samsung Electronics, SK Group, and Hyundai Motor Group will each receive more than 50,000 GPUs. Naver Corporation is set to acquire 60,000 units.
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