Science ministry sets 4 trillion won frontier-tech push with 15 agencies

The science ministry said Wednesday that South Korea will commit 4 trillion won ($2.95 billion) by 2027 to a coordinated push into seven advanced technologies, with 15 ministries, agencies and committees working under a single framework.

The programme, called the seven SEED projects, was approved at the 13th science and technology ministers' meeting, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon in Seoul. It covers small modular reactors, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, quantum technology, aerospace, advanced biotechnology and advanced supply chains.

Bae framed the drive as a response to international debate over how quickly artificial intelligence should be developed. "What South Korea needs now is not speed control but speed responsibility," he said, adding that the gap between countries with frontier AI capabilities and those without will shape industrial and economic competitiveness, not just technology. "Making a country that can go faster while also going safer is the path South Korea must take," he said.

The meeting also passed a measure to link intellectual property strategy across the whole life of state-funded research, from project planning through global patents to commercialisation. Intellectual Property Commissioner Kim Yong-sun said patent strategy must accompany research from its earliest stages if national R&D results are to compete in global markets, pledging support to secure overseas original and standard patents and to build a national patent strategy map for physical AI.

Of national R&D patent applications, 87 percent were filed in Korea in 2024 — 38,444 of 44,079. Royalty income earned by universities and public research institutes came to 278 billion won ($205 million), about 1.5 percent of their 19.2 trillion won ($14.2 billion) in research spending. IP-R&D support accounted for 3.2 percent of applied and developmental R&D projects in 2024.

The government also approved a roadmap for its K-Moonshot strategy, which combines mission-oriented research with science and AI. Roughly 8,000 GPUs on the country's sixth supercomputer will be reserved for K-Moonshot work, and new R&D planning for the programme is scheduled for 2028.