South Korea faces AI policy vacuum as key control posts sit unfilled

Korea has been punching above its weight in AI—on semiconductors, telecoms, and industrial automation—but this article highlights a softer bottleneck: institutional capacity. With both the presidential AI senior secretary and the standing vice chair of the National AI Strategy Committee vacant, the country’s nominal ‘control tower’ is effectively operating on one engine. That matters because high‑level political backing is often what turns technical capabilities into coherent national strategy: aligning export controls, research funding, education and infrastructure around a clear direction.

In the global race to AGI, gaps at this level can quietly erode a country’s position. While US, EU and Chinese institutions are racing to harden their AI governance frameworks, Seoul risks losing momentum just as it courts deeper AI partnerships with Singapore, Japan and major chipmakers. If the vacuum persists, Korea may find itself reactive—responding to standards and norms set elsewhere—rather than shaping how frontier models and AI agents are governed in critical sectors like automotive, electronics and defense. For global observers, this is a case study in how political churn and personnel choices, not just R&D spend, can shift a nation’s trajectory in the AI era.