Bill seeks to boost South Korea's AI competitiveness after DeepSeek shock
South Korea's ruling People Power Party Rep. Kim Gunn introduced a bill seeking to expand investment in the country's artificial intelligence and boost innovation.
Kim said he proposed the bill to boost South Korea's competitiveness in the AI field amid the accelerating global race for AI supremacy, after the Chinese startup DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the tech community.
According to Kim, the relatively limited pool of AI experts is one of the main challenges facing South Korea in the sector.
While China has about 410,000 experts working in the AI industry, and the US has about 200,000, South Korea has only about 20,000, Kim said.
Kim said South Korea planned on investing 65 trillion won between now and 2027, compared to the US, which plans to inject some 180 trillion won through 2030.
Based on existing AI laws, tax exemption was limited to select fields such as semiconductors, secondary batteries and vaccines.
The bill proposed by Kim would extend tax exemption to AI and cloud computing technologies, and offer more favorable tax credit rates to related research and development.
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