The government is changing how it provides voucher support related to AI. It is scaling back a model that directly supported small and medium-sized companies’ costs to buy and process data and shifting emphasis toward integrated support for companies’ AI transformation (AX).

A Ministry of Science and ICT budget document dated April 2 shows the 2026 data voucher budget at 9.35 billion won, down 66.6 percent from 28.0 billion won a year earlier. The data voucher program, launched in 2019, supports costs when small and medium-sized companies, small business owners and prospective entrepreneurs buy or process data needed for AI development. The support amount grew to 265.7 billion won in 2022, then fell for 4 consecutive years.

The decline reflects the fund’s financial situation. The Information and Communications Promotion Fund, which finances the data vouchers, relies mainly on contributions from telecommunications operators. Fund revenue itself is falling due to a drop in landline telephone and internet subscribers and saturation in the telecoms market. The overall budget for the AI integrated voucher program, which includes the data voucher, also fell to 89.8 billion won in 2026 from 265.7 billion won in 2022, shrinking to about one-third in 4 years.

A new program was created this year within the same budget. The AX one-stop voucher was budgeted at 30.0 billion won for 2026, from 0 won in 2025. It allows demand-side organisations to receive bundled support at once for the technology, infrastructure and data needed for AI transformation. The Ministry of Science and ICT, the Industry Ministry and the SME ministry this month jointly issued an integrated notice for 11 AX programs, including AI agents and AX sprints, totaling 423.0 billion won.

Still, the AX one-stop voucher is hard to view as a substitute for the data voucher. While the data voucher supports small and medium-sized companies and small business owners with up to 45 million won per case, the AX one-stop voucher provides about 3.0 billion won per project and supports only 20 organisations. With a higher threshold, very small firms or small business owners new to data use are effectively unlikely to gain access.

Demand in the field is rising instead. Applications for data vouchers in 2025 totaled 4,699 companies, with a competition ratio of 10.2 to 1, the highest on record. AI data specialist Crowdworks said this year’s average daily inquiries related to data vouchers rose 60 percent from a year earlier. Selectstar also said they increased 40 percent over the same period. Crowdworks said, "SMEs appear to be starting to view AI not as mere curiosity but as a means of survival."

The Ministry of Science and ICT says the data voucher cut reflects fund constraints rather than a shift in policy direction. A ministry official said, "As revenue for the Information and Communications Promotion Fund, the source of data voucher financing, declined, it affected budget formulation," adding, "It may differ from the ministry’s intent." The official added, "Since data is essential in the AI era, we have never considered eliminating the program, and we plan to 추진 it steadily within the fund’s capacity."

The Interior and Safety Ministry has offered a supplement to cover gaps in private-sector data support. The ministry said early this year it will build a management system for refined 'AI-Ready' public data so AI can immediately use it for learning and analysis, and will open 100 types of high-value public data in stages over 3 years. It aims to create a data environment companies can use without separate costs. Still, because this is limited to public data, some point out it is hard to replace demand for companies’ own industry-specific training data.

An official at a company carrying out data voucher projects said most applicant companies are startups or prospective entrepreneurs, and they need not only data but also elements supported by the AX one-stop voucher, such as AI models and GPUs. The official said the current scale of the data voucher budget is insufficient even to meet such demand and competition for selection is fierce. The official added, "There needs to be consideration so more companies can gain access."