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South Korea Selects Five Consortia for Sovereign AI Foundation Model Project

Formal support agreements are set to be signed in early August to begin staged evaluations through 2027.

Overview

  • The Ministry of Science and ICT chose Naver Cloud, Upstage, SK Telecom, NC AI and LG AI Research from 15 domestic consortiums.
  • Each selected group will receive 10 billion won in shared datasets and 2.8 billion won for specialized data collection.
  • SK Telecom and Naver Cloud will supply leased GPU infrastructure to Upstage, NC AI and LG AI Research through early 2026.
  • Participating models must achieve at least 95 percent of the performance of the most advanced global AI systems released in the past six months.
  • Formal support agreements will be signed in early August and the first performance evaluation is scheduled for December, with further biannual assessments through 2027.