Baek Kyung-hoon, deputy prime minister and minister of science and ICT, stressed that he plans to disclose detailed results of evaluations of homegrown AI foundation models.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Baek stressed that the evaluation of homegrown AI foundation models was carried out using standards that all citizens can accept.

"The government has unwaveringly supported homegrown AI foundation models, set standards and evaluated them," he said. "The evaluation results will be disclosed to the public in detail from technical, policy and ethical perspectives," he added.

The homegrown AI foundation model project has 5 consortia taking part, including Naver Cloud, Upstage, SK Telecom, NC AI and LG AI Research, and is awaiting the announcement of first-round evaluation results.

"All 5 consortium companies achieved the result of being listed as Epoch AI's 'notable AI models'," Baek said. "As recently as the year before last, only 1 model was listed, and before that there were none. That shows how much our companies have grown," he said.

He also drew a line against views that the ministry had been passive in evaluating models. "There were things said that the government was standing idly by on issues such as from-scratch, but it was a period of expert evaluation," he said.

He also mentioned support measures for consortia that are eliminated. "Because AI resources are limited, we are using the current evaluation method to concentrate resources and challenge for the world's best," Baek said. "Even eliminated companies will be provided with continued support and opportunities," he stressed.

"I do not want to distinguish winners and losers," Baek said. "But as this is a project that began impressively with the future of South Korea at stake, I hope to see a spirit of accepting the results cleanly and challenging again," he added.