Seoul, May 13 || South Korean Minister of Science and ICT Yoo Sang-im will visit the United States later this week to discuss ways to expand cooperation with Nvidia in securing advanced graphic processing units (GPUs), the ministry said on Tuesday.
The announcement came during a meeting of the government-led special committee on artificial intelligence (AI) computing, which Yoo chairs.
At the meeting, the ministry also unveiled an additional budget of 1.46 trillion won ($1.03 billion) aimed at purchasing 10,000 high-performance GPUs, reports news agency.
The budget will support a comprehensive plan covering procurement, infrastructure development and GPU utilisation through public-private collaboration.
This follows the South Korean government's earlier pledge to secure 10,000 advanced GPUs within this year to stay competitive in the global AI race.
As part of the first phase, the government will select a cloud service provider to begin GPU acquisition and build related infrastructure at the planned National AI Computing Center.
The program will also support local industry-academia research centres and state-funded project operators by allowing them to utilise the national data centre.