The government will begin developing a homegrown AI foundation model specialised in cybersecurity. It plans to pool public and private capabilities to develop an AI model tailored to security and spread it as open source to foster a domestic AI-based security ecosystem.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said on Tuesday it will accept applications for the "cybersecurity-focused AI foundation model development" project with the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) until Aug. 21.

The project was launched to secure a security-focused AI model optimised for domestic conditions as cyberattacks become more sophisticated with advances in AI technology. The government plans to quickly deploy available GPU resources to develop a domestically built security AI model.

Companies, universities and research institutes in South Korea in the AI and cybersecurity fields can take part in the tender. The government will select 1 participating team after evaluating technological capabilities, development experience, development goals, marketability and ripple effects.

The selected team will receive support for 10 months in the form of 256 Nvidia B200 GPUs (32 nodes). The team must propose a plan to develop the security-focused AI foundation model and a plan to demonstrate AI-based services.

The government will disclose an interim results model 5 months after the project starts and conduct a staged evaluation to decide whether to continue support. It will also assess the final results for innovation and whether goals have been achieved.

The security-focused AI model developed will be aimed at open source, as with existing specialised AI foundation model projects. The government plans to spread it across South Korea's security industry and will also review support measures to continue follow-up development from 2027.

Ryu Je-myeong (류제명), the second vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, said the project was intended to respond pre-emptively to the rapidly changing AI development environment and cybersecurity paradigm. He said the government would secure a security-focused AI foundation model optimised for domestic conditions and spread it to lay a core foundation for an AI-based cybersecurity ecosystem.