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South Korean chairman lee jae myung A budget speech on Tuesday called for tripling government spending on projects to expand artificial intelligence infrastructure and technology.
Lee also called on lawmakers to approve a planned 8.2% increase in defense spending next year that would help modernize the military’s weapons systems and reduce its dependence on the United States, as military chiefs of allies met. soul For annual security talks.
Most conservative opposition lawmakers boycotted Lee’s speech amid disagreements over a criminal investigation into former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief imposition of martial law in December.
Lee’s speech came as South Korea last week hosted leaders of key Pacific Rim countries for this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings, which his government uses to showcase its ambitions for AI and push for a trade deal with the US.
Li calls for expansion of AI computing and manufacturing
In his speech at the National Assembly, Lee highlighted his APEC diplomacy and bilateral meeting with US President donald trumpWhich he said has reduced the uncertainties facing South Korea’s trade-dependent economy by securing lower tariffs on automobiles and computer chips, the country’s two major exports.
He said the country still faces a critical moment for “national survival” amid rapid changes in the global trade system and a “huge, transformative wave of AI”.
Lee said the proposed budget of 728 trillion won ($506 billion), which would be the highest level ever for government spending, would be the country’s “first budget to open the AI era.”
He called on the liberal-led legislature to approve 10.1 trillion won ($6.9 billion) in AI-related spending to advance the country’s AI computing and manufacturing capabilities, with a particular focus on industries such as semiconductors, automobiles, shipbuilding and robotics — more than three times this year’s level.
“Just as President Park Chung-hee paved the highway for industrialization and President Kim Dae-jung built the highway for the information age, we must now build the highway for the AI age to open up a future of progress and development,” Lee said, referring to Park’s dictatorship in the 1960s and 70s and major development campaigns during Kim’s presidency from 1998 to 2003.
Uncertainties remain over access to key AI chips
Lee cited an agreement that said South Korean companies will have little difficulty obtaining chips for their AI projects. NVIDIAWhose GPUs power much of the global AI industry, supplying 260,000 graphics processing units to AI infrastructure projects with major South Korean businesses and the government. The deal was announced after a meeting during APEC between Li and Jensen Huang, the Silicon Valley company’s chief executive officer.
It was not immediately clear when Nvidia — which agreed to give 50,000 GPUs each to the government, chipmakers Samsung and SK, and automaker Hyundai, and 60,000 GPUs to Internet company Naver — would deliver those chips. Huang told reporters in South Korea that the company will have to set up an AI data center and power network before it can start shipping GPUs.
Concerns have grown over the future of the projects after Trump said on board Air Force One on Monday that only US customers should have access to Nvidia’s latest Blackwell AI chips, declaring, “We don’t give that chip to other people.”
increase in defense spending
Lee proposed a defense budget of 66.3 trillion won ($46 billion) next year, which he said would focus on modernizing the military’s weapons systems, including adopting AI technologies to make the armed forces more self-reliant.
“It is a matter of national pride that South Korea, which spends 1.4 times North Korea’s annual GDP on defense and is considered to have the world’s fifth most powerful military, is dependent on others for its security,” Lee said.
During his meeting with Trump, Lee reaffirmed South Korea’s commitment to increasing defense spending and called for U.S. support for South Korean efforts to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
Trump later said on social media that the United States would share close technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine, and that the ship would be built at the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, which was bought by South Korea’s Hanwha Group last year.
Lee’s speech came as US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-bak were meeting in Seoul for the allies’ annual security talks. The meeting is expected to discuss key alliance issues, including South Korea’s defense spending commitments and the implementation of a plan to transfer wartime operational control to a joint command led by a South Korean general with an American deputy.