Korea reveals AI, bio, quantum tech roadmap

[Courtesy of MS]

The South Korean government identified artificial intelligence (AI) and chips, advanced biotechnology, and quantum technology as the top three game-changing technologies and unveiled plans to strengthen investment and the value chain in these sectors by 2030.

The government‘s goals are part of the three game-changer initiatives that were formed following a meeting of the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology on Thursday.

The AI and chip initiative aims to enhance national competitiveness in AI to maintain and elevate the brand power of Korean semiconductors. To foster innovation across all AI and chip domains, the government identified nine technological tasks, including the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and lightweight, low-power AI technology.

The next-generation AGI effort aims to cultivate AI technology capable of human-like thought and behavior and with intelligence levels that are 50 percent or greater than those of adult humans. To achieve this goal, the government is planning an extensive research and development (R&D) project that includes complex cognition, self-learning, autonomous growth, and adaptation to environmental changes.

As part of developing lightweight, low-power AI technology, the government aims to develop AI algorithms that are one-tenth the size of existing systems, consume half the power, and exceed a performance rate of 98 percent. Other tasks include the development of processing-in-memory (PIM) technology and low-power AI processors.

The advanced biotechnology initiative seeks to promote advanced bio as the nation’s next major industry after semiconductors, with plans for this sector focused on cultivating digital bio, integrating data, AI, and bio. To realize this goal, the government will pursue the establishment of an integrated bio-data platform across the biomaterials and medical sectors, with the resulting big data to be processed into useful data sets and standardized to improve data quality. A “human standard molecular map” will also be developed during this process to enable disease prediction based on the analysis of cell molecules in organs.

Innovation in bio-manufacturing is key to securing core technologies for synthetic biology, including the design, synthesis, and high-speed screening of bio-components.

The quantum initiative aims to increase the nation‘s quantum science and technology to levels exceeding more than 80 percent of those in the United States by 2030, or up from the current 65 percent. The government has already more than doubled the 2025 budget for quantum science and technology, and the increased budget will be used to support the development and manufacturing of critical quantum components and process technologies for quantum processors. The government aims to increase the number of quantum technology companies from about 80 in 2022 to 500 by 2030.