At Smart Cloud Show 2026 in Seoul, global AI leaders argued Korea can lead real-world AI deployment by leveraging its manufacturing, semiconductor, infrastructure, and talent strengths to drive industrial AI applications.

Korea aims to become a global AI powerhouse despite concerns about capital and infrastructure, counting on manufacturing data, semiconductor strength, and sustained government support.

Experts urged a staged safety framework for higher-autonomy physical AI, covering training, movement verification, and pre-action validation.

Advancing AI hinges on high-quality data and differentiating through proprietary datasets and foundation models rather than relying solely on external models.

Immediate priority is practical AI deployment for citizens and businesses, not just theoretical capabilities.

A token economy is proposed to reward data and content generated by citizens and enterprises, creating a virtuous cycle where tokens support usage and value in AI services.

The government plans to close the AI usage gap through education initiatives, public AI agents, and nationwide contests to broaden participation and accelerate data generation and adoption.

Strategic aims include accelerating physical AI deployment in industry, reducing regulatory hurdles, and pursuing leadership rather than settling for secondary positions.

Physical AI represents the ultimate stage, needing vast industrial data and on-site AI-enabled factories, with success dependent on diverse data and autonomous robot decision-making.

Deployment criteria emphasize near-99.9% accuracy, manageable deployment effort, and comprehensive risk considerations beyond code, including cloud, networks, and security.

On-device AI and physical AI are key directions, with hardware and model efficiency improvements enabling localized processing using Korea’s factory data and manufacturing strength.

Investments and international recognition, including major projects and AI summit discussions, reflect growing momentum in Korea’s AI trajectory.