As the global race for artificial intelligence (AI) supremacy intensifies, tech giants and governments worldwide rapidly boost their research and development (R&D) budgets.
While South Korea is still debating additional AI funding, experts argue that significant investments are essential for the country to catch up with the leading players in the AI space.
On Wednesday, reports from the ICT industry revealed that Chinese tech giant Xiaomi announced its plans to invest more than $4 billion in AI, operating systems (OS), and chipset R&D this year alone at the 2025 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain.
Honor, a former Huawei subsidiary, also revealed its ambitious AI strategy at MWC. Over the next five years, the company will commit $10 billion to AI projects, including developing highly advanced smartphones.
Chinese companies dominated the spotlight at the event, showcasing aggressive investment plans and next-generation products.
Honor introduced Paxini, a humanoid robotic arm capable of mimicking the hand movements of spectators with remarkable precision.
Xiaomi debuted its new Xiaomi 15 series, which features Google’s generative AI model, Gemini. Unitree, which featured an array of robots, including the bipedal humanoid G1 and robotic dogs, caught the attention of attendees.
Governments are also stepping up their investment efforts. During China’s annual political gathering, the Two Sessions, which began on March 4, the country announced a massive science and technology budget of 1.2464 trillion yuan ($171.67 billion), reflecting an 8.3% increase from the previous year. The central government’s allocation for science and technology alone saw a 10% increase, totaling 398.1 billion yuan ($54.83 billion).
In the U.S., major tech players OpenAI and Oracle Corporation have partnered with Japan’s SoftBank Group to launch Stargate, a joint venture focused on developing AI infrastructure nationwide. The project plans an initial $100 billion investment, with a total of $500 billion to be poured into AI data centers over the next four years.
South Korea is also stepping up its AI strategy. At MWC, SK Telecom held a press briefing to announce plans to build four different types of AI data centers.
SK Telecom CEO Yoo Young Sang shared plans to construct a massive 100-megawatt (MW) AI data center capable of housing 60,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) to launch. The company aims to launch profit-generating AI projects this year.
However, South Korea’s challenge lies in the technological gap, which is wide between its efforts and those of China and the U.S. It will be an uphill battle to narrow this gap.
South Korea’s national AI investments include an additional 1.2 trillion won (approximately $8.27 million) for expanding AI infrastructure, a plan agreed upon by both ruling and opposition parties last year. Additionally, a supplementary budget of 2 trillion won (around $13.7 million) has been allocated to develop GPU and AI-based facilities, aiming to elevate South Korea to one of the top three AI nations by the end of this year. The goal is to increase the country’s cutting-edge GPU holdings tenfold, reaching 20,000 units by the first half of next year.
Yoo Sang Im, South Korea’s Minister of Science and ICT, who visited the MWC exhibits, emphasized the need for bold investments in R&D personnel, resources, and strategic support. “If we fail to secure competitiveness in the global market by 2030, our technological leadership will be at serious risk,” he warned.