The South Korean government plans a 4.7 trillion won investment to launch a state-backed artificial intelligence program to develop frontier AI models capable of competing with Chinese open-source models, The Korea Times reported Monday, citing Korea's Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT Ryu Je-myung.

The government-backed equity project could involve a special purpose company bringing together Korea's top AI model developers.

The project, to be launched next year, will be included in the 2027 budget and will aim to overcome current technological limitations, Je-myung said.

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