South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Tuesday it has selected recipients for about 4,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) currently available out of 10,000 secured under a first supplementary budget in 2025, and will begin supplying them from March.

A total of 514 applications were received, seeking 1,714 servers and 13,712 GPUs. After review, 159 applications were selected, covering 528 servers and 4,224 GPUs. By sector, 2,624 GPUs will be supplied to academia, 1,288 to industry and 312 to research. Demand from academia was the highest at 8,600 GPUs, and its supply share was also the highest.

The ministry plans to monitor usage regularly after allocation. It will reclaim GPUs and redistribute them if they are found to be underused or used for purposes other than intended.

It will also hold an additional call this month. It will seek applications for a total of 4,000 GPUs for industry, including small and startup companies, and about 1,000 for academia and research. The 4,000 for industry consist of 3,000 unallocated GPUs and about 1,000 leased from private cloud service providers (CSPs). From future calls, it plans to provide balanced support by giving preference to industry, academia and research organisations outside the capital region and preventing allocations from being concentrated in specific institutions.

Choi Dong-won (최동원), director general for AI infrastructure policy at the ministry, said he hopes the government's GPU supply will serve as a catalyst for a virtuous cycle that leads to stronger domestic AI capabilities and more active services.