South Korea's National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy Committee said on Monday that its standing vice chair, Moon-young Lim (임문영), met National Assembly Speaker Won-shik Woo (우원식) and Korean Academy of Engineering President Eui-joon Yoon (윤의준) to discuss strategies to secure and nurture AI talent.

The meeting at the National Assembly Speaker's office was arranged to review domestic and international trends and government policy on AI talent and to share items requiring cooperation from parliament. The participants agreed that securing AI talent is a national task that is difficult to solve through the efforts of any single institution or ministry, and they shared the view that a nationwide response system is needed.

Lim said, "A change is also needed in the perspective and evaluation methods for AI talent." He added, "We should move away from existing evaluations centered on academic credentials and papers and create a flexible talent recognition system that reflects diverse capabilities such as practical experience and technical achievements, like China's practice-oriented doctorate system."

He added, "Not only should we secure AI talent, but we should also create a venue where talent can fully engage in research, startups and industrial activities domestically." He said, "We should strengthen the foundation so that companies and the industrial ecosystem can actively absorb and grow talent."

The committee plans to continue cooperating with parliament, academia and industry to keep identifying policy tasks for training, attracting and using AI talent and to continue related discussions.

Lim said, "Since there are parts that are difficult to resolve with fairness and equal distribution alone, the public sector's strategic role is important." He added, "We should establish a policy foundation to secure outstanding talent through more flexible and competitive system design."