Skip to main content
Scrutica
Records to 2026-09

Sovereign AI

Sovereign programme record · South Korea · 2025–2030

South Korea: programme funding and hardware

South Korea: National AI Initiative & K-Chips Act

  • Announced—

    No announced dollar amount on record.

  • Government funding—

    No government-only dollar amount on record.

  • Committed~$1.10B
  • Disbursed—

    No disbursed dollar amount on record.

Funding stages share a dollar scale. A hatched track marks an absent figure and gives its reason. Tildes mark estimated figures.

Operating compute / delivered hardware. Reported operational or delivered: 7,656 NVIDIA B200 (physical hardware); 3,056 NVIDIA H200 (physical hardware).

Funding components

ComponentKindAmount
Sovereign AI model programme (funding amount unavailable)Government—
2025 supplementary-budget GPU procurement (KRW 1.46T; reported as approximately US$1.1B)Government$1.10B
Private sector (Samsung, SK, Hyundai, Naver, etc.)Private—
Jeollanam-do data-centre investment (amount unavailable)Private—
KEPCO power infrastructure (amount unavailable)State enterprise—

Hardware on record

ModelCountStatusOrganisation / role
Vendor unspecified (public-sector 2028 target)52,000AnnouncedMinistry of Science and ICT; overlapping public-sector acquisition programmes

Mixed or unspecified scope: Public-sector GPU target for 2028 reported by Korea Herald. Reporting · 2025-12-15

NVIDIA GPUs (public/private 2030 target)260,000AnnouncedGovernment and private companies; 2030 target reported by Korea Herald, 15 December 2025; includes public-sector target

Mixed or unspecified scope: Public/private GPU target for 2030 reported by Korea Herald, including public-sector acquisitions. Reporting · 2025-12-15

NVIDIA B2007,656OperationalNHN Cloud; May 2026 company announcement, including 6,120 GPUs reserved for government use

Physical hardware: Whole NHN B200 system, including 6,120 GPUs reserved for government use. Primary source · 2026-05-13

NVIDIA B2002,424CommissioningKakao allocation; company reported 2,040 installed and testing in December 2025

Physical hardware: Kakao’s 2,424-GPU allocation; 2,040 were installed and testing in December 2025. Primary source · 2025-12-29

NVIDIA H2003,056OperationalNaver Cloud; operation reported by ZDNet Korea, 14 May 2026

Physical hardware: Whole Naver H200 system; operation was reported by ZDNet Korea in May 2026. Reporting · 2026-05-14

Empanelled partners · 3

PartnerAcceleratorsModelStageSource
NHN Cloud7,656NVIDIA B200DeployedPrimary source · 2026-05-13

Physical hardware: Whole NHN B200 system, including 6,120 GPUs reserved for government use. Primary source · 2026-05-13

Completed the 7,656-B200 system at its Yangpyeong AI centre in Seoul. Of these GPUs, 6,120 are reserved for government use; some government-funded capacity became available on 1 April 2026.

Naver Cloud3,056NVIDIA H200DeployedPress or analyst · 2026-05-14

Physical hardware: Whole Naver H200 system; operation was reported by ZDNet Korea in May 2026. Reporting · 2026-05-14

ZDNet Korea reported the 3,056-H200 system in operation in May 2026; provider confirmation is unavailable. The July 2025 MSIT allocation reserved 2,296 of those GPUs for government use.

Kakao2,424NVIDIA B200AwardedPrimary source · 2025-12-29

Physical hardware: Kakao’s 2,424-GPU allocation; 2,040 were installed and testing in December 2025. Primary source · 2025-12-29

Allocated 2,424 B200 GPUs for its Ansan data centre. Kakao reported 2,040 installed and testing on 29 December 2025 and planned beta access for 2 January 2026.

External dependence

NVIDIA hardware: High · US technology: High. These are editorial assessments based on the programme’s procurement disclosures.

Named partners: NVIDIA, Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai, MSIT, Naver, SK Telecom, LG, NCSoft, Upstage, KEPCO.

The 2025 supplementary-budget procurement allocated 13,136 GPUs across NHN Cloud, Kakao and Naver Cloud, with 10,456 reserved for government use. NHN Cloud announced completion of its 7,656 B200 system in May 2026; Kakao reported 2,040 GPUs installed and testing in December 2025 within its 2,424-GPU allocation. ZDNet Korea reported Naver’s 3,056 H200 system in operation in May 2026. Korea’s longer-term targets combine public acquisitions with private-company plans. A separate National AI Computing Center is planned at Haenam.

Data-quality caveats on this record · 8

  • MSIT’s July 2025 procurement announcement allocates 10,080 B200 and 3,056 H200 GPUs across three cloud providers. The KRW 1.46T supplementary-budget allocation was reported as approximately US$1.1B. The government-use quantities are subsets of the provider totals.
  • NHN Cloud announced the completed 7,656-B200 system on 13 May 2026, with 6,120 GPUs reserved for government use. Some government-funded resources had been available since 1 April.
  • Kakao’s 29 December 2025 announcement describes 2,040 installed B200 GPUs under final testing, within its 2,424-GPU allocation. It scheduled beta access for 2 January 2026 and gives no status for the remaining 384.
  • Naver’s operational status follows ZDNet Korea’s 14 May 2026 report on its 3,056 H200 GPUs. Provider confirmation of that status is unavailable.
  • Korea Herald reported in December 2025 a 52,000-GPU public-sector target for 2028 within a larger 260,000-GPU public/private plan for 2030. NVIDIA’s October 2025 announcement includes about 50,000 public-sector GPUs and more than 200,000 for private companies, without a completion date. These targets include multiple acquisition programmes.
  • The sovereign-model programme selected five consortia in August 2025. At the January 2026 evaluation, LG AI Research, SK Telecom and Upstage advanced; Naver Cloud and NC AI were dropped, and a further selection round was planned to fill a fourth place.
  • ZDNet Korea reported on 16 June 2026 that the Korea AI Computing Center company had registered the previous week, with its headquarters at Haenam. It reported Samsung SDS’s stake as 30%, the government’s as 29% and Naver Cloud’s as 26.1%. This corporate formation is separate from the 2025 cloud-provider GPU procurement.
  • The AI Basic Act and its Enforcement Decree took effect on 22 January 2026.

The evidence trail

16 cited sources

Machine accessThe same record, machine-readable: the evidence-trail feed and the derivation-chain export.