Government Invests 500 Trillion Won to Launch "K-NVIDIA Project" to Drive AI Semiconductor Leap

The government announced a 50 trillion won financial support plan aimed at nurturing domestic AI semiconductors. The plan states that in the global AI market, NVIDIA’s graphics processing units (GPUs) consume high energy and are expensive, prompting efforts to develop alternative technologies.

On the 17th, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Financial Services Commission held a joint public-private forum at the Seoul News Center, where they announced the promotion of the “K-NVIDIA Project.” This project aims to respond to the global AI ecosystem by developing low-power, high-performance domestic neural network processors (NPU) to enhance competitiveness. The fund focuses on large-scale venture capital supply, including an AI semiconductor patent fund, to build a domestic AI semiconductor industry ecosystem.

Existing NVIDIA GPUs, which are one of the factors limiting AI demand expansion, have high power consumption and operational costs, becoming problematic. In response, the government hopes to address these issues by developing domestic NPUs. Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Lee Jong-ho emphasized the need to build an “AI highway” with low-power, high-efficiency semiconductors during the forum.

This project has been selected as one of the first large-scale national growth fund projects, with about 10 trillion won in long-term capital to be invested this year alone. It is expected that this move will allow domestic AI semiconductor companies to seize a golden opportunity to enter the global market.

These government efforts are interpreted as a strategic move to develop the AI semiconductor industry in the medium to long term and to take a leading position in the global market. Experts predict that when policies are organically combined with finance, Korea’s AI industry can remain competitive even in more complex global markets.