The government plans to invest approximately 4 trillion won next year to secure 10,000 units of NVIDIA's latest graphics processing unit (GPU), 'Bella Rubin.' This strategy aims to achieve a qualitative and quantitative leap in AI infrastructure by accelerating the national-level acquisition of GPUs, as public AI services such as 'AI for All'--a project enabling unrestricted access to domestic AI services for all citizens--are set to expand.
According to industry sources on the 19th, the Ministry of Science and ICT has decided to extend the 'AI Computing Resource Utilization Infrastructure Strengthening Project' and allocate next year's entire procurement volume to Bella Rubin.
The project involves private companies, such as cloud service providers (CSPs) operating data centers, taking full responsibility for the entire process of GPU procurement, construction, and service provision using government funds. Over the past two years, the government has secured and supplied over 30,000 GPUs to public and private sectors through this and other initiatives.
While the continuation of the project for next year was undecided, the government has resolved to extend it to support the rapid spread of AI. It is reported that the ministry is currently in discussions with budget authorities to allocate around 4 trillion won for this purpose. (See page 9 of the July 8th edition of this newspaper.)
The government's decision to focus on Bella Rubin stems from the expectation that high-performance GPU demand will surge due to the expansion of public services like 'AI for All.' Bella Rubin, the next-generation GPU, offers up to 6 times better training performance and over 8 times improved inference performance compared to the previous-generation Blackwell architecture. The government aims to enhance the sophistication of independent AI model training and accelerate the intelligence transformation (AX) of administrative tasks.
Additionally, with growing demand for GPUs from high-computation sectors such as agentic AI, multimodal, and vision technologies, the provision of Bella Rubin--optimized for these needs--is expected to yield significant practical benefits.
However, the feasibility of securing sufficient 'floor space' (data center space) to operate 10,000 Bella Rubin units simultaneously remains uncertain.
An industry insider noted, “Given the current shortage of available floor space, securing a large-scale new supply by next year seems challenging. The government is assessing various alternatives and industry conditions, and the final direction of next year's project will likely depend on the outcomes.”
A Ministry of Science and ICT official stated, “There is an urgent need to secure and provide the latest GPUs to accelerate AI transformation (AX),” while adding, “The GPU procurement plan and budget scale have not yet been finalized.”
