Deputy Prime Minister and Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon (배경훈) said he will seek to drive increased investment in South Korea by overseas big tech firms such as Broadcom, OpenAI, Anthropic and Nvidia, ahead of a visit to Silicon Valley in the United States.

Bae met reporters on July 23 after a meeting with the chief executives of South Korea's three telecom carriers at SK Telecom's headquarters. He said the key purpose of his U.S. trip is cooperation in which big tech firms strengthen investment in South Korea.

Bae leaves for San Francisco later on July 23 and will discuss measures for AI industry cooperation with local big tech companies. He also plans to focus talks on areas such as AI market expansion, AI data centres and semiconductors.

Bae said there will be many discussions aimed at the United States investing in cooperation with South Korea and expanding the South Korean market, rather than South Korea investing in the United States. He said it can be seen as a summit to introduce K-AI to the world.

Bae also urged the three telecom carriers to step up efforts to transform into AI companies. He said they need to view the market from the perspective of overall AI services, including AI security.

He said the aim is for telecom companies to actively participate in the recently announced "AI for Everyone" and to complement South Korea's relatively lacking consumer-to-consumer and service-oriented AI.

Separately, the Ministry of Science and ICT will operate a public-private consultative body from August to comprehensively review AI network investment and regulatory improvements.

Bae said the body will discuss necessary regulatory improvements and support measures from the perspective of building overall AI networks, including AI data centres and AI-RAN.