South Korea acquires 10,000 GPUs for national AI center

South Korea has announced ambitious plans to strengthen its position in the global artificial intelligence race. The country’s government intends to purchase 10,000 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) by the end of this year to create a national AI computing center.

“As competition for dominance in the AI industry intensifies, the competitive landscape is shifting from rivalry between companies to full-scale competition between national innovation ecosystems,” said South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok.

The program is being implemented through a public-private partnership, with specific details, including the budget, GPU models, and list of participating private companies, to be determined by September 2025, according to a representative of the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The decision was made against the backdrop of new American regulations on AI chip export controls. South Korea has been included in a group of 18 countries effectively exempted from restrictions, while 120 other states will face quotas, and Iran, China, and Russia are completely denied access to these technologies.

Special significance is given to the initiative by the fact that American Nvidia controls about 80% of the global GPU market, significantly outpacing competitors Intel and AMD.