South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Sunday it selected Naver Cloud, Samsung SDS and Elice Group to take part in a project to secure, build and support operations of advanced graphics processing units (GPUs).

The project, part of an "AI highway" initiative aimed at making South Korea one of the world's three leading AI powers, will receive 2.08 trillion won. The ministry plans to work with the 3 selected cloud service providers (CSPs) to secure and build a total of 9,704 GPUs and provide computing resources needed for AI innovation in the private and public sectors.

The bidding process ran from March 12 to April 13, with 5 cloud companies submitting bids. The ministry selected the final 3 after reviewing document eligibility, assessing business understanding, execution capability, readiness and efforts to develop the AI ecosystem, and conducting on-site inspections.

The secured volume includes 2,016 Nvidia Vera Rubin units and 7,688 B300 units. Naver Cloud will build 1,008 Vera Rubin units and 3,112 B300 units, Samsung SDS will build 1,008 Vera Rubin units and 2,016 B300 units, and Elice Group will build 2,560 B300 units.

The ministry said that although rising memory and storage prices increased GPU buildout costs, it will introduce the latest high-performance models such as Vera Rubin and B300. It said this will secure performance exceeding the original target of 15,000 B200 units by about 30 percent, equivalent to about 19,000 B200 units.

Of the total, 2,016 Vera Rubin units and 4,360 B300 units will be used for independent development of AI foundation models, national AI projects, and support for industry-academia-research AI model and service development. The remaining 3,328 B300 units will be used by CSPs for their own cloud-based GPU services.

The ministry will push ahead with purchase orders for GPUs this month and will sequentially start B300 services within the year. Vera Rubin services will start in the first half of 2027, taking into account the release schedule.

Deputy Prime Minister Bae Kyung-hoon (배경훈), who is also minister of science and ICT, said the advanced GPUs to be secured will be a key driver that takes AI research and development speed and technological capability to the next level. He said the government will secure world-class AI infrastructure capabilities and support AI innovation and growth at domestic companies and research institutions.