Gov’t to increase 2025 R&D budget, focus on AI chips

Park Sang-ook, senior presidential secretary for science and technology. [Photo by Lee Seung-hwan]

South Korea’s government began formulating the 2025 budget for science and technology research and development (R&D), with plans to form a task force to streamline R&D projects for future core technologies during the following week and significantly increase the related R&D budget. The task force is expected to share R&D expertise and upgrade related systems, addressing the controversy surrounding this year‘s R&D budget reduction.

“We will form a task force for innovation-leading R&D projects and allocate a substantial budget to them,” Park Sang-ook, senior presidential secretary for science and technology, said during a press meeting on Tuesday. “We are currently discussing and formulating the government’s R&D investment direction for 2025 in consultation with the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), the Office of Science, Technology and Innovation Coordination at the MSIT, and financial authorities.” This marks the first disclosure of the direction of R&D budget increase since President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged to significantly expand the related budget for the year.

There are currently five projects in progress under the innovative leading R&D segment across three ministries according to Park. “We plan to launch the task force during the following week to share know-how and upgrade related systems by connecting representative projects.”

The task force, which will consist of researchers, private company representatives, and government officials, will play a role in reducing inefficiencies such as overlapping investments between R&D projects. “There were calls for reform when we formulated the 2024 R&D budget,” Park said. “We are currently putting a lot of effort into reforming the R&D investment system to transition towards challenging and innovative, as well as first-mover R&D.”

The government also plans to inject a substantial portion of the 2025 R&D budget in an ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) Semiconductor Project,’ which combines various elements, including high bandwidth memory (HBM), process-in-memory (PIM), a Korean-style graphics processing unit (GPU) for AI, and low-power AI semiconductors, to transform Korea into a leading country in AI semiconductors. A framework will be created to link existing and new R&D projects in the advanced bio sector, such as AI-based drug design, and a large budget will be allocated, according to Park.

The government plans to present its 2025 R&D investment plan to the National Science and Technology Deliberation Council during the following week. “We will present a detailed report to President Yoon afterwards,” Park said, but did not provide specific figures, such as the expected size of the 2025 R&D budget.