South Korea Proposes Record 39.5 Trillion Won R&D Budget, With 9.4 Trillion Won for AI

South Korea plans to spend 3.85 trillion won to secure about 10,000 of Nvidia’s latest Vera Rubin graphics processing units as part of a record research budget for 2027.

The government approved a 39.5 trillion won national R&D proposal, an increase of 4 trillion won, or 11.2%, from this year. The figure marks a reversal after R&D spending fell to 26.5 trillion won in 2024, the first annual decline in 33 years. New programs will receive a record 3.3 trillion won.

The Ministry of Science and ICT proposed a total budget of 29.6476 trillion won, up 24.5% from this year’s supplementary budget. It allocated 14.1 trillion won to R&D and 9.4211 trillion won to AI, an 84.3% annual increase that accounts for roughly one-third of the ministry’s total spending.

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We have prepared the largest-ever AI and science and technology budget to strengthen the country’s future potential.

Besides the GPUs, the plan includes 800 billion won for AI training data and 250 billion won for “AI for Everyone,” a program intended to give all citizens free access to a domestically developed AI chatbot. The ministry expects 10 million people to use the service each year. The government also identified physical AI, AI data centers and next-generation semiconductors as three major projects, while assigning 1.3439 trillion won to seven future-growth fields including small modular reactors, fusion and quantum technology.

The proposal seeks to rebuild research capacity weakened by the 2024 cuts. Funding for individually led basic research will rise from 125.6 billion won to 226.1 billion won, and the number of personal basic-research projects will reach 18,000. The government also plans to increase its share of personnel costs at state-funded research institutes from 60.3% to 70.2%, with a target of full coverage by 2030.

The increase for personal basic research overall, however, is 7.8%, below the ministry’s 24.5% budget growth. A science official said the comparison was affected by the restoration of deep R&D cuts from the previous administration. The budget must pass parliamentary deliberation before the end of the year.

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The restoration of the R&D budget, which the previous administration had sharply cut, made the growth rate that year unusually high and created an optical illusion.