{"id":354710,"date":"2025-11-04T09:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T09:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/354710\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T09:47:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T09:47:15","slug":"south-korean-president-calls-for-aggressive-ai-spending-in-budget-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/354710\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korean president calls for aggressive AI spending in budget speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung<\/a> on Tuesday called for tripling the government spending on projects for expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure and technology in a budget speech.<\/p>\n

Lee also called for lawmakers to approve a planned 8.2% increase in defense spending next year, which he said would help modernize the military\u2019s weapons systems and reduce its reliance on the United States, as the allies\u2019 military chiefs met in Seoul for annual security talks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most conservative opposition lawmakers boycotted Lee\u2019s speech amid an ongoing rift over a criminal investigation into former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief imposition of martial law<\/a> in December.<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s speech came after South Korea last week hosted the leaders of major Pacific Rim nations for this year\u2019s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings<\/a>, which his government used to showcase its ambitions for AI<\/a> and advance an effort at a trade deal with the U.S.<\/p>\n

In his speech at the National Assembly, Lee highlighted his APEC diplomacy and a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, which he said eased uncertainties facing South Korea\u2019s trade-dependent economy by securing lower tariffs on automobiles and computer chips, two of the country\u2019s key exports.<\/p>\n

He said the country was still facing a critical moment for \u201cnational survival\u201d amid rapid changes in the global trade order and a \u201chuge, transformative wave of AI.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lee said the proposed budget of 728 trillion won ($506 billion), which would represent an all-time high for government spending, would be the country\u2019s \u201cfirst budget to open the AI era.\u201d <\/p>\n

He called on the liberal-led legislature to approve 10.1 trillion won ($6.9 billion) in AI-related spending \u2014 more than triple this year\u2019s level \u2014 to advance the country\u2019s AI computing and manufacturing capabilities, with a particular focus on industries such as semiconductors, automobiles, shipbuilding and robotics.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust 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 construct the highway for the AI era to open a future of progress and growth,\u201d Lee said, referring to major development drives under Park\u2019s dictatorship in the 1960s and \u201970s and Kim\u2019s presidency from 1998 to 2003, which focused on expanding South Korea\u2019s internet infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Lee said South Korean companies would have little difficulty securing the chips for their AI projects, citing a deal for Nvidia<\/a>, whose GPUs power much of the global AI industry<\/a>, to supply 260,000 graphics processing units for AI infrastructure projects with major South Korean businesses and the government. The deal was announced following a meeting during APEC between Lee and Jensen Huang, the Silicon Valley company\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t immediately clear when Nvidia \u2014 which agreed to deliver 50,000 GPUs each to the government, chipmakers Samsung and SK, and automaker Hyundai, and another 60,000 to internet company Naver \u2014 will deliver those chips. Huang told reporters in South Korea that AI data centers and power networks must first be established before the company can begin shipping the GPUs. <\/p>\n

Concerns have grown over the projects’ future after Trump said aboard Air Force One on Monday that only U.S. customers should have access to Nvidia\u2019s latest Blackwell AI chips, declaring, \u201cWe don\u2019t give that chip to other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee proposed a defense budget of 66.3 trillion won ($46 billion) next year, which he said will be focused on modernizing the military\u2019s weapons systems, including through the adoption of AI technologies, to make the armed forces more self-reliant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of national pride that South Korea, which spends 1.4 times North Korea\u2019s annual GDP on defense and is perceived as the world\u2019s fifth most powerful military, continues to depend on others for its security,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

During his meeting with Trump, Lee reaffirmed South Korea\u2019s commitment to increase defense spending and called for U.S. support for South Korean efforts to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. <\/p>\n

Trump later said on social media that the United States will share closely-held technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine, and that the vessel will be built in the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, which was bought last year by South Korea\u2019s Hanwha Group.<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s speech came as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back were meeting in Seoul for the allies\u2019 annual security talks. The meeting is expected to address key alliance issues, including South Korea\u2019s 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 a U.S. deputy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday called for tripling the government spending…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":354711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[173206,691,347,738,64,57,325,65,8132,80,48567,158,67,132,68,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-354710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-173206","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-government-budgets","15":"tag-information-technology","16":"tag-military-and-defense","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-semiconductor-manufacturing","19":"tag-technology","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115490799183075121","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}