South Korea’s GPU Grab: Targets 10,000 GPUs for National Computing Center

In response to the escalating global AI race, South Korea has announced plans to acquire 10,000 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs). South Korea’s acting president Choi Sang-mok said, “As competition for dominance in the AI industry intensifies, the competitive landscape is shifting from battles between companies to a full-scale rivalry between national innovation ecosystems,”

Last month, the U.S. government introduced new regulations to control the export of American AI chips and these rules restrict the export of GPUs with specialized processors. South Korea is one of the 18 countries that are exempt from these restrictions however other 120 countries will face limitations and countries like Iran, China and Russia are completely barred.

The South Korean government aims to secure these 10,000 GPUs through public-private cooperation to help the country launch its services at the national AI computing centre.

The government hasn’t decided which GPU products will be purchased yet, though the other details like budget, specific GPU models and companies that will be a part of this are expected to be finalized by September end, an official of the Ministry of Science and ICT told Reuters.

Nvidia, a U.S. chip designer which currently holds 89% of the global GPU market has experienced a surge in demand for its generative AI and accelerated computing.

Other companies like OpenAI are also planning to reduce their reliance on Nvidia by developing its own AI silicon which is backed by Microsoft. Reportedly it’s in the final stages of designing its first in-house chip.

The AI industry is also deeply shaken by the emergence of the Chinese startup DeepSeek which utilizes AI models that optimize computational efficiency rather than raw processing power, which could potentially narrow the gap between U.S. and Chinese-made AI processors.

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