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South Korea
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Why South Korea is racing to build a sovereign AI model for cybersecurity

Fears over access to foreign AI models have accelerated Seoul’s push to control the systems used to defend critical infrastructure

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Officials at the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) check internet systems at the KISA situation room amid reports that several computers were struck by a new type of ransomware the previous night, in Seoul, South Korea, on June 28, 2017. Photo: EPA
Park Chan-kyong
South Korea plans to develop its own cybersecurity-focused artificial intelligence model by the end of this year, after a brief US clampdown on advanced systems exposed the risks of relying on foreign technology for national cyber defence.

But Seoul’s more ambitious, longer-term goal of building a frontier model capable of competing with the world’s most advanced systems would require it to overcome a persistent gap in AI software, computing capacity and large-scale training, analysts said.

The initiative reflects a broader push for “AI sovereignty”, with governments in Japan, Britain, Canada and across the European Union investing in domestic models and computing infrastructure to reduce their reliance on foreign providers.

Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon unveiled the plan on Thursday after Washington imposed new export restrictions on several advanced AI models, including Anthropic’s Mythos 5.

“We are pushing to create an AI model specialising in cybersecurity within this year by training our existing sovereign AI models on security-related data,” Bae said during a policy briefing chaired by President Lee Jae Myung.

Bae warned that AI-powered cyber threats were becoming increasingly sophisticated.

“AI can be used to identify security vulnerabilities and exploit them with ease, so we need to prepare our defences accordingly,” he said.

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