Featured image adapted from Korea JoongAng and Reddit.
The South Korean government is launching an “AI for Everyone” project to provide all citizens with free, unlimited use of artificial intelligence (AI) services.
According to Yonhap News, the Science Ministry announced applications for the project on 13 July.
The application is set to close on 11 August.
The Ministry said that there are currently 23 million generative AI users in South Korea, but a third of the population still does not have access to such tools.
Furthermore, the AI models being used are also free versions of foreign models. The project will also aim to prevent potential issues that may arise from instability in the industry, such as future subscription fee increases.
According to Korea JoongAng, the project will include a general-purpose AI chatbot and a public-service AI agent.
Source: Korea JoongAng
To do this, the government intends to provide 512 B200 graphics processing units from Nvidia to a few select companies. A budget will also be provided starting in 2027 to cover the costs of providing the AI services nationwide.
Developers will be required to use South Korean AI models for at least 50% of their system.
When the news was shared on the r/korea subreddit, the response was largely negative. Many said they would rather see public funds be used elsewhere, such as tax refunds or raising teacher salaries.
On X, people were highly critical of the government, with some even thinking that this is a scheme to siphon funds.
Source: X
The split responses on Korean forums were similar.
While one netizen was “curious to see what comes out” of the project, another labelled it as “useless”.
Despite criticism over the move, AI use in South Korea continues to grow. On 15 July, the popular South Korean search engine Naver announced that its AI tab surpassed 10 million users.
Naver also announced that it would be providing ₩10 million (S$8,645) monthly to the top ten creators who are frequently cited by their AI searches.
Also read: ‘AI this AI that’: S’poreans discuss if Govt’s push for AI is warranted or ‘just another hype train’
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Featured image adapted from Korea JoongAng and Reddit.