South Korea touts 2026 as leap year for science and AI strategy

South Korea has been quietly but steadily positioning itself as a mid‑sized AI power, and this New Year’s address elevates AI to the level of national destiny. By framing 2026 as the year when science and AI "change the fate" of the country, the government is signalling that it sees AI not just as a tech sector issue but as a cross‑cutting industrial and societal lever—on par with its historic bets on semiconductors and broadband. That matters because Korea already controls key parts of the AI hardware value chain, from memory to advanced packaging, and has globally competitive firms eager to layer AI services on top.([mk.co.kr](https://www.mk.co.kr/jp/it/11920809?utm_source=openai))

In the AGI race, Korea’s strategy is likely to combine deep participation in the GPU and memory supply stack with aggressive deployment of AI in manufacturing, logistics and public services at home. It will not lead in frontier labs, but it can significantly influence the economics of training and serving models by how it steers Samsung, SK hynix and domestic data‑center build‑outs. A government‑backed push toward an “AI basic society” also creates a dense internal market for AI tooling and standards, which could yield exportable governance templates and enterprise products. Think of Korea not as a primary AGI contender, but as a powerful second‑tier player whose industrial policy can shape costs, safety norms and application patterns.