Four elite teams in the government's "independent AI foundation model" project have all placed their AI models on a global AI competitiveness evaluation metric. So far this year, only the United States, China and South Korea have produced models listed on the metric.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said on Monday that AI models developed in the first half of this year by the four teams were listed on the "Notable Model" list of U.S. nonprofit AI research group Epoch AI.

The metric is also used as a key indicator for evaluating national AI competitiveness in the AI Index published annually by Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI).

Stanford University's AI Index 2026 showed that the number of notable models last year included 59 for the United States, 35 for China and 8 for South Korea.

The ministry added that, so far this year, only three countries - the United States, China and South Korea - have notable models selected by Epoch AI.

The teams released the models they developed in the first half of this year as open source. The ministry said it was meaningful that models developed with relatively limited resources compared with global big tech were listed on an international evaluation metric.

Bae Kyung-hoon (배경훈), deputy prime minister and science minister, said, "Independent AI models made with South Korean technology are proving global-level technical capabilities and showing resilience." He said, "We will provide support so that we can continue results that the public can feel while competing with major leading countries."