South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT received applications from 2 consortia in an additional call for 1 elite team for its “domestic AI foundation model” project, held from Jan. 23 to Feb. 12.

The ministry said on Wednesday the consortia led by Motif Technologies and Trillion Labs submitted proposals.

The additional call follows the first-stage evaluation on Jan. 15 in which Naver Cloud and NC AI were eliminated, reducing the number of elite teams from 4 to 3. In the first evaluation, the SK Telecom, LG AI Research and Upstage consortia advanced to the second-stage evaluation.

The ministry plans to quickly complete a suitability review of submitted documents and an evaluation by outside experts in February, and announce the results of the additional call for 1 elite team. The expert evaluation consists of a document review and a presentation assessment.

The additional team selected will be provided GPU resources equivalent to 768 B200 units and support for joint purchasing, building and processing data, and will also be granted the name “K-AI company.” The ministry plans to conduct a stage evaluation in early August to align the development period with existing teams.