Signal Japan and South Korea commit national semiconductor and AI budgets including funds for local models

Summary

Japan and South Korea have both committed substantial national budgets to semiconductors and AI. CB Insights lists a Japanese commitment of about 65 billion dollars across the semiconductor and AI sectors. South Korea has an AI development budget of 6.8 billion dollars. On top of that, it has set aside 390 million dollars specifically for developing local AI models. These programmes form part of a wider group of national initiatives that CB Insights sees as fragmenting the global AI market into regional ecosystems. They reflect concerns shared across many governments about access to compute, chip supply and control over data.