Illustration, AI-generated from the story text. Tap a panel to read the story through it.
President Lee Jae Myung asked the National Assembly on Monday to pass a record 820.9 trillion won ($614.5 billion) budget for 2027, up 12.8% by his count.
Of that, 21.3 trillion won goes to three "megaprojects": a chip manufacturing hub, AI data centers and physical AI.
A separate 4.6 trillion won, about $3.4 billion, is for a model that Lee said would have the world's highest performance.
The government expects higher tax revenue from the chip boom to help pay for it. The export numbers above are where that tax revenue comes from. A government buying its own frontier model with chip profits is betting the profits last long enough to pay for a model that will need replacing within a year.
Seoul asks for 21.3 trillion won for AI next year, and 4.6 trillion won for its own frontier model
President Lee Jae Myung asked the National Assembly on Monday to pass a record 820.9 trillion won ($614.5 billion) budget for 2027, up 12.8% by his count. Of that, 21.3 trillion won goes to three "megaprojects": a chip manufacturing hub, AI data centers and physical AI. A separate 4.6 trillion won, about $3.4 billion, is for a sovereign AI model that Lee said would have the world's highest performance. The government expects higher tax revenue from the chip boom to help pay for it.
The export numbers above are where that tax revenue comes from. A government buying its own frontier model with chip profits is betting the profits last long enough to pay for a model that will need replacing within a year. SourcesB
Sources
- BLee's 2027 budget speech (The Korea Herald)koreaherald.com
This story ran in the Morning Brief of November 2nd 2026.