South Korea Allocates KRW 50 Trillion (US$ 33.3 billion) for 'K-Nvidia' AI Chip Fund

Sejong, South Korea — The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Financial Services Commission have announced a plan to invest KRW 50 trillion over the next five years through the National Growth Fund to support the domestic artificial intelligence semiconductor industry.

Officials outlined the funding strategy during a public-private joint meeting for the K-Nvidia development project at the Press Center on March 17.

Attendees included Deputy Prime Minister and MSIT Minister Bae Kyunghoon, Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eok-won, Korea Development Bank Chairman Park Sang-jin, and the chief executives of five domestic AI chip developers: Rebellions, FuriosaAI, HyperAccel, DeepX, and Mobilint.

The government plans to allocate KRW 10 trillion from the fund this year for the AI and semiconductor sectors.

The K-Nvidia initiative is one of seven projects designated for the fund in December 2025, intended to support the design and production of domestic AI chips.

The investment will target the development of low-power, low-cost Neural Processing Units, which are intended to address the energy consumption and operational costs associated with Graphic Processing Units. 

GPUs account for a substantial portion of the global AI semiconductor market.

Lee Eok-won stated that the fund is structured to provide long-term capital across multiple stages, including initial infrastructure construction, operational upgrades, and market expansion.

Participating AI semiconductor companies presented technical roadmaps for Neural Processing Unit products during the meeting.

The companies indicated that capital investments would impact their mass production schedules.

Korea Development Bank Chairman Park Sang-jin stated that the bank intends to use the National Growth Fund to support the semiconductor value chain, including fabless design, foundry manufacturing, and packaging.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Financial Services Commission stated that they plan to coordinate on AI projects beyond the K-Nvidia initiative and the National AI Computing Center, including investments in physical AI ecosystems and industrial AI transformation.