President Lee Jae Myung has launched a national program to give every resident access to homegrown general-purpose chatbots and public-service agents with no usage limits, backed by new laws, a safety institute, and major semiconductor and data-center investments.
Every South Korean resident will receive free, unmetered access to domestic general-purpose chatbots and public-service agents before the end of the year.
The program pairs public access with industrial policy: boosting Korea’s role in the AI supply chain through memory-chip dominance, domestic models, and multi-gigawatt data centers.
Critical gaps remain in evaluation capacity and in measuring how these systems will affect hiring, credit, and public services.
# What the plan is South Korea is rolling out "AI for All": the government will provide free, unlimited access to domestically built general-purpose chatbots and a public service agent to all 51 million residents. The rollout is scheduled to be completed by year-end. The services are built on Korean models and supported by new data-center capacity and semiconductor partnerships.
# Why the government is doing this
# The legal and institutional framework
# Funding and industrial moves The presidential cabinet approved a 2027 budget that increases the Ministry of Science and ICT's AI spending by 84 percent to $6.3 billion (KRW 9.4 trillion) and doubles the line for AI safety technology development to $10 million (KRW 15.2 billion). The government also announced semiconductor supply and production partnerships between US and South Korean firms worth a combined $950 billion over five years, and it is building multiple-gigawatt AI data-center capacity.
# Where the risks and gaps remain
# How this compares internationally South Korea's law is now fully in force, a contrast with the EU (which delayed some high-risk obligations) and the United States (which lacks a horizontal AI law). The government's approach mixes industrial policy and social access: treating AI access as national infrastructure while pushing to keep models and systems domestic.
# What to watch next Track AISI's staffing and technical resources, the National Assembly's decisions on budget allocation, the technical performance and auditability of the domestic models, and early indicators of how public-service agents affect hiring, credit decisions, and access to government services. Also watch cooperation between South Korea and US firms on supply chains and whether the promised data-center capacity comes online as planned.
# Bottom line South Korea is committing heavy public resources to make advanced AI widely available and domestically controlled. The policy pairs access with new legal obligations and safety institutions, but measurable evaluation capacity and concrete safeguards for labor and credit impacts still need to be scaled up to determine whether broad access will actually translate into broad benefit.
Jiyoung Sohn / Wall Street Journal : South Korea unveils a project with KT, SK Telecom, and Kakao to provide premium AI tools to the public for free, a move that treats AI like a public utility — Seoul wants to direct use of homegrown AI chatbots to reduce reliance on U.S. or Chinese options, footing the bill and offer
SEATTLE — Korea's plan to give everyone free, unlimited access to artificial intelligence (AI) initially landed at home as another government technology initiative. But over the past week, foreign media and commentators have cast it in far more consequential terms: a bold experiment in treating AI as public infrastruct
Южная Корея решила предоставить всем своим гражданам бесплатный доступ к генеративным ИИ-сервисам в рамках государственной программы «Искусственный интеллект для всех». Власти рассчитывают таким образом расширить использование отечественных ИИ-моделей и снизить зависимость страны от технологий США и Китая. Источник изо
Источник: Компьютерра - Журнал о науке и технологиях Южная Корея запускает масштабный проект: все население страны получит бесплатный доступ к генеративному ИИ без каких-либо ограничений по токенам. ИИ будет встроен в государственные системы: с его помощью можно будет записаться к врачу, найти жилье, разобраться с нало
Japans rupture with Moscow and North Koreas rise as a Russian ally show how US power is reshaping the security order across Northeast Asia Fifteen years ago, it appeared that Russia-Japan relations were improving to the extent that Japan could become, for Russia, an eastern version of Germany as a former enemy turning
North Korea has stepped up its verbal attacks on Japan, issuing more than a dozen denunciations through state media since early July and hardening its rhetoric in recent days by accusing Tokyo of whipping up a “neo-militarist frenzy” and preparing for a “war of aggression”. Analysts said the latest broadsides from Kim
Loading more related stories...
Open the app view to save this story, compare related coverage, and continue from the same source.