South Korea’s Minister of Science and ICT, Yoo Sang-im, will travel to the United States this week to discuss deepening cooperation with Nvidia as part of a national effort to secure advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) critical for AI development, the ministry announced on May 13.

The visit coincides with the government’s unveiling of a 1.46 trillion won ($1.03 billion) budget to purchase 10,000 high-performance GPUs in 2025—an ambitious move to strengthen the country’s competitiveness in the global AI race.

The funding will support a broad plan encompassing GPU procurement, infrastructure development and collaborative utilization between the public and private sectors.

The first phase involves selecting a cloud service provider to initiate the acquisition and begin infrastructure work at the upcoming National AI Computing Center.

“Securing advanced GPUs is the beginning of innovation in Korea’s AI ecosystem,” said Minister Yoo, who chairs the government’s AI computing committee. He noted the importance of cross-sector collaboration to enhance the nation’s AI capabilities and support domestic research.

The new initiative will also give local research institutions and government-backed projects access to national GPU resources, signaling South Korea’s growing commitment to scaling up its AI infrastructure.