South Korea intends to secure 10,000 high-performance graphics processing units this year, aiming to be competitive in the AI race, Reuters reported.
"As competition for dominance in the AI industry intensifies, the competitive landscape is shifting from battles between companies to a full-scale rivalry between national innovation ecosystems," said South Korea's acting President Choi Sang-mok, the report added.
Choi noted that the government plans to secure the 10,000 GPUs via public-private partnerships to help launch services at its national AI computing center early.
Last month, the former Biden administration released rule on 'Artificial Intelligence Diffusion,' which streamlines licensing hurdles for both large and small chip orders and provides clarity to allied and partner nations about how they can benefit from AI. Nvidia (NVDA) had criticized the new effort by the Biden administration to restrict export of American technology. However, the White House had then noted that no restrictions apply to chip sales to 18 key allies and partners.
South Korea is among the 18 countries exempt from the restrictions, the report added.
The South Korean government has not yet decided what GPU products to buy, but details on budget, GPU models and participating private companies would be finalized by September this year, the report added citing an official from the Ministry of Science and Information and Communications Technology.
Nvidia has about 80% global market share in GPUs, much more than competitors Intel (INTC) and AMD (AMD), the report noted.