South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Tuesday it has begun a recruitment notice for industry, academia and research users for about 2,000 advanced GPUs to be leased from private cloud service providers (CSPs).

Recruitment will proceed on two tracks. It will allocate at least 1,060 GPUs under a high-performance computing support programme for industry, including small and medium-sized companies and startups, and at least 960 under a computing support project for AI research for academia and research institutions.

Under the industry programme, applicants can choose and apply in units of 1 to 16 GPUs, and young companies will receive a 50 percent discount on usage fees and extra points in selection. Under the research programme, GPUs will be provided free of charge in server units, but corporate participants will pay 2.5 to 7.5 percent of the market price. This year it will create a track for early-career researchers within 7 years of appointment or aged 39 and under, and will allocate 30 percent of total resources to them on a priority basis. Researchers outside the greater Seoul area will receive extra points in evaluation.

It also will begin rolling applications from April via the National AI Computing Resources Support Portal for government GPUs secured through last year's supplementary budget. The ministry plans to identify demand in advance through rolling applications and quickly allocate resources when cancellations or idle resources occur. It will reclaim resources if GPU usage performance is insufficient or if use outside the stated purpose is confirmed.

Choi Dong-won (최동원), director general for AI Infrastructure Policy at MSIT, said, "We will provide swift and balanced support reflecting on-site demand so that AI computing resources do not become an obstacle to innovative research and product and service development."