South Korea's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee said on Wednesday it will strengthen cooperation with U.S. network and security company Cisco.

Standing Vice Chair Lim Moon-young (임문영) met Cisco Senior Vice President Pastora Valero, who oversees international policy, to discuss mutually beneficial cooperation measures to respond to the era of AI technological hegemony. Valero's visit to South Korea was the first in 3 years.

The meeting was held at Cisco's request, as it hopes to strengthen its strategic partnership with South Korea in the process of implementing the government's AI Action Plan. The two sides shared the view that talent is the fundamental driving force to lead the AI era. They agreed to expand training of practical AI and security professionals through Cisco's flagship education programme, the Cisco Networking Academy.

The committee said it will continue efforts such as training core AI talent, upgrading security infrastructure and spreading regional AI ecosystems by strengthening partnerships with global technology companies including Cisco.

Lim said the committee has recently expanded and reorganised its organisation to keep pace with the AI era, and that it has made AI security its top priority, to the point of establishing a Security Special Committee. He asked Cisco, which he said has unrivalled network infrastructure and security technology, to play a bigger role in creating a safe AI ecosystem at the global level as well as in South Korea.

Valero said Cisco, as the foundation of infrastructure connecting GPUs and data centres and as a security specialist company, is ready to actively support South Korea so it can leap to become an "AI G3".