By Park Jun-young WIRED Korea

It should not have come as a surprise when Minister of Science Choi Ki-young exuded self-confidence before President Moon Jae-in who was being briefed on his 2020 policy programs on January 16. He had every reason to feel confident about the implementation of his policy, which had the full backing of the National Assembly as well as the president himself.

When the National Assembly passed the government’s 2020 budget bill last month, it did not cut the amount of spending on research and development requested by the ministry. Instead, it raised this year’s R&D expenditure from the ministry’s earlier request for 24.1 trillion won to 24.22 trillion won, up a whopping 18 percent from last year.

It is unusual, if not unprecedented, for lawmakers to give more money than requested by a government agency. They are ready to ax budget requests item by item unless they are set aside to finance their pet projects to be launched in their constituencies.

But not this time for the ministry. Instead, the National Assembly went out of its way to demonstrate that it was in full support of the ministry’s R&D projects focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G technology, which has recently started to empower the nation’s mobile networks. It apparently did so under pressure from the public demanding more spending on R&D.
 

With unwavering public support, Korea has been pouring a large portion of its gross domestic product into projects designed to advance science and technology each year, an effort that has catapulted one of the poorest countries in the world into a group of advanced industrial countries in a short period of time.

In terms of research and development expenditure as a percentage of GDP, Korea ranked second after Israel in 2017, according to the latest data provided by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. In the same year, Korea ranked fifth with $78 billion after the United States, China, Japan and Germany when it came to the total amount of public and private R&D expenditures.

The minister told the president that his ministry will focus, among others, on artificial intelligence and 5G technology, whose development he believes will have a long-lasting impact on the nation’s economy.

The ministry has a long-term commitment to spending on some of the AI projects. One of them is the project to develop a technology for the next generation of intelligent computer chips and deep learning -- key technologies for artificial intelligence. The minister said more than 1 trillion won will be spent on the project during the next decade.

In addition, it is planning to create a 300 billion won AI fund to assist computing power rental services and spend another 393.9 billion won on the project to build a complex for AI-related businesses in Gwangju, a metropolitan city in the southwestern part of Korea.

Other AI projects include training algorithm coders and assisting graduate school programs and colleges focusing on software programming and programming education at primary and secondary schools.

The ministry’s decision to focus on AI is reminiscent of advice from Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. in Japan, who visited Seoul last July. When he was asked what Korea should focus on during his talks with President Moon, he was quoted as saying, “The first is AI, the second is also AI and the third is AI as well.”

Another area that needs massive funding is the 5G mobile networks that went into commercial service last year. The network operators --- SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus --- need to upgrade their 5G existing networks by building more base stations for better service and prepare themselves for costly projects to build new separate 5G networks to meet growing corporate demands for service.

The projects are estimated to cost 30 trillion won in the next three years, with the ministry’s spending being seed money for massive corporate investments.

The ministry is also planning to spend on biomedical sciences, space projects, development of materials, parts and components and quantum mechanics. It says they will have a great impact on the nation’s economy and the Korean society in general when the Fourth Industrial Revolution is ushered in in the not-too-distant future.

Not many would be better positioned than the minister to carry out all these projects. As a scientist himself, who holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University, Minister Choi should be well versed in research and development.

Moreover, he will have few problems in policy coordination with the presidential office, which has already set up new three task forces authorized to handle issues concerning artificial intelligence, data and networks.

Another favorable development is the recent passage of three revision bills on the use of personal data, which many believe will facilitate the use of AI in developing virtual-reality and augmented-reality contents, building mobile and other platforms and the management of mobile networks.

The huge increase in spending on research and development may not bring dramatic changes to the Korean society anytime soon. Instead, changes may look to be few and far between. Yet, the government will have to continue to spend large amounts of money on research and development, given that an R&D investment in a key area is set to have incremental effects on life in Korea.

In this regard, the minister will have to take measures to help build a “nation strong in science, artificial intelligence and the media industry,” as he promised in his policy briefing to the president. The nation, as he put it, then will change eventually for the better and usher in an era that its citizens will be prosperous.


The above is a translation of Park Jun-young’s combined Korean-language articles by Choi Nam-hyun, deputy editor in chief at WIRED Korea.