The government will build an integrated support system covering the full process of education, development and verification so anyone can learn AI, develop services and use them in the field.

The Ministry of Science and ICT held a launch ceremony for the 'Everyone's AI Growth Ladder Project' on Sunday at the National Gwangju Science Museum and declared the combined opening of the 'Everyone's AI Learning Center, Lab and Lounge.'

The Everyone's AI Growth Ladder links AI education, development and verification infrastructure previously pursued separately to build a step-by-step growth system that runs from learning to development to commercialisation.

The online AI education portal, the 'Everyone's AI Learning Center,' provides public and private education content in one place. It is open to elementary, middle and high school students, university students, young people and the general public. Through chatbot search based on generative AI, it recommends training suited to users' interests and learning levels and connects them to related services.

The portal currently links government education platforms including EBS E-SOUP, SchoolAI, K-MOOC, STEP, the AI Digital Learning Center and the Small Business Knowledge Learning Center. It also provides information on AI-related on-site training, exhibitions and events, and competitions.

The ministry will gradually expand links to private education platforms. It also plans to introduce login and membership management systems and strengthen learning history management and personalised content recommendation functions.

The 'Everyone's AI Lab' is an online platform that supports the public in developing AI services without cost or technical barriers. It provides users with a natural-language-based vibe coding environment, tokens for using generative AI models, private cloud services and AI development support tools. Users can also tap 99,000 public and private datasets and 13,000 application programming interfaces.

It also offers development consultations through a specialised technical support centre. The ministry plans to open an 'AI idea community' where users propose ideas and discuss them, and an 'AI showcase board' for sharing development results.

At the offline hub, the 'Everyone's AI Lounge,' users can develop AI services themselves and apply them on site for verification. 'AI Sherpas,' who are AI experts, will provide close support for beginners' service development and help local residents and experts develop AI-based solutions to local issues.

Lounges will be built this year in five regions nationwide: the Seoul metropolitan area, Gangwon, Chungcheong, Gyeongsang, and Jeolla and Jeju. In the Seoul metropolitan area, lounges will be set up at local media centres in Gimpo, Goyang, Seongnam, Hwaseong and Anseong. The Gangwon hub will be at the Gangneung Metaverse Experience Center, the Chungcheong hub at Cheonan INNOSTAR, and the Gyeongsang hubs at the Daegu Technopark Sports Industry Support Center, Beomeo Library, Masan University and Seomyeon Makerspace. The Jeolla-Jeju hub will be the National Gwangju Science Museum.

Outstanding development teams identified through the Everyone's AI Lab and Lounge will receive early-stage startup consulting and commercialisation support in legal, marketing and technology areas.

Bae Kyung-hoon (배경훈), deputy prime minister and minister of science and ICT, said AI utilisation capability is a new basic competency that all citizens must have and a key element of national competitiveness. He said the government will build a dense AI foundation for everyone so the benefits of AI can reach all citizens.