The government has defined the securing of Artificial Intelligence (AI) sovereignty as an industrial security task and presented a direction for Sovereign AI financial support that bundles domestic AI semiconductors, foundation models, and computing infrastructure. The plan is to inject policy finance across the entire AI value chain to reduce dependence on overseas Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and Big Tech models.
Lee Eok-won, Chairman of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), visited the headquarters of FuriosaAI in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the 12th and held a meeting with AI semiconductor and model companies to announce this support direction. This visit was organized to inspect the industrial site of domestic Neural Processing Units (NPUs) and to strengthen the National Growth Fund's support for the AI ecosystem.
Chairman Lee said on this day, “AI is a new national infrastructure and a foundation for growth that operates atop all industries, much like electricity and the internet,” and added, “Securing independent computational infrastructure, data, and model capabilities is a matter of AI sovereignty, data sovereignty, and industrial security.”
Policy finance is a key tool of the Sovereign AI strategy. From January to April this year, the National Growth Fund achieved 11 approvals totaling 8.4 trillion won, and among these, 4 cases totaling 2 trillion won were approved for the AI sector alone. This accounts for approximately 24% of the total approved amount.
The government plans to foster a value chain that leads from AI semiconductors to computing infrastructure, foundation models, and application services. It will supply development and mass-production funds to domestic AI semiconductor companies and establish a foundation for utilizing domestic chips at the National AI Computing Center. At the same time, it is a structure that grows both the demand and supply of the domestic AI ecosystem by supporting model and service companies.
The field meeting was attended by FuriosaAI, Upstage, LG AI Research, Wrtn Technologies, and Law&Company. The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE), and the Korea Development Bank (KDB) also participated. FuriosaAI showcased its next-generation inference-specialized AI semiconductor 'Renegade,' emphasizing its performance-per-watt competitiveness compared to global companies' GPUs. Upstage explained its plans to advance AI models for corporations and develop 'Solar Open,' an LLM for the general public.
Related ministries are also adding weight to the support. The FSC and KDB will handle the supply of funds through the National Growth Fund, while the MSIT and MOTIE will link support for technological development and industrial application. The MSIT presented the development of domestic AI semiconductors and independent AI foundation models as key tasks for securing Sovereign AI. MOTIE decided to prepare a full-cycle support plan including R&D, verification, and mass production so that chips designed by promising domestic fabless companies can be introduced to manufacturing sites.
The FSC plans to support more than 50 trillion won in the AI and semiconductor sectors over the next five years through the National Growth Fund, and intends to build a 'Total Solution,' a comprehensive support system that links financial support with R&D, regulations, and taxation.
Chairman Lee said, “The path of AI is not a short race that yields results in a short period,” and emphasized, “Venture capital and patient capital that believe in the potential and time of companies and go along with them are absolutely necessary.”
