AI and data-center initiatives are central to Korea’s strategy, including a 69.1% jump in AI R&D to 4.1 trillion won and plans to fund AI data centers as a national strategic industry, with the goal of achieving global leadership in full-stack physical AI by 2030.

The 2027 budget signals continued double‑digit growth, rising 11.2% from the current year after a 19.9% increase this year, aiming to restore and boost funding levels for R&D.

Procedural reforms will accelerate tech development, shortening preliminary feasibility reviews for large projects exceeding 100 billion won from about two years to three months to speed progress.

South Korea has set its 2027 national R&D budget at 39.5 trillion won, with a plan for cumulative government R&D spending to surpass 200 trillion won from 2026 through 2030.

A new Second Medium- to Long-Term Investment Strategy for National R&D finalizes a five-year plan (2026–2030) allocating over 200 trillion won in government R&D investments, marking the first time the target exceeds that amount.

Advanced robotics and mobility funding will grow 46.9% to 1.1 trillion won to support core robotics and mobility tech and localization of components.

Within MSIT’s budget for next year, total spending reaches 29.6 trillion won (up 24.5%), with AI-specific outlays up 84.3% to 9.4 trillion won, including 3.85 trillion won to procure 10,000 Vera Rubin GPUs for frontier AI model development.

Future energy and nuclear power funding rises 37.7% to 1.7 trillion won to support AI infrastructure.

The plan addresses concerns about China overtaking Korea in key technologies, aiming to maintain leadership in AI, physical AI, semiconductor manufacturing, and to enable a commercial small modular reactor (SMR) by 2035.

The budget underscores Korea’s role as a leading AI nation and showcases domestically developed physical AI demonstrations in public logistics using Korea Post infrastructure, signaling broader commercialization of AI technologies.