The warning ahead of the race among cities
In South Korea, the project to host an international artificial intelligence hub is entering a decisive phase, but calls are growing to proceed with caution. According to ETNews, before the site is chosen, some promoters of the initiative—launched during the early phase of Lee Jae-myung’s government—are urging the definition of concrete objectives and a preliminary plan. Among them are Democratic lawmaker Cha Ji-ho, who helped devise and propose the hub, and Lim Mun-young, former permanent vice chairman of the National Council for AI Strategy, who had backed the project as a point of intergovernmental coordination.
Cha, in a conversation with the newspaper, used a construction metaphor: one cannot build without a blueprint, and blueprint and construction must be organically linked. In essence, before choosing where to establish the hub, it is necessary to clarify what is meant to be done with the initiative’s attraction and what contribution it wants to offer to the international community.
The ministry’s criteria and timetable
The Ministry of Science and ICT recently held a public hearing on the site selection, indicating four evaluation criteria, including functional competencies and living conditions for staff, and a timetable that calls for a decision in December. For critics, however, the definition of objectives and the hub’s management plan remain inadequate.
Despite this uncertainty, the competition already appears intense: several major local governments—including Busan, Jeonnam Province with Gwangju, Incheon, Gyeonggi, Gyeongbuk and Jeju—had expressed interest before the hearing, and even lower-tier local authorities said they were available to participate before or after the meeting. The newspaper flags the risk of a scramble for candidacies that precedes the definition of the strategic framework.
Toward an alliance for public AI
Cha urges consideration of the context of United Nations agencies, which deal with different problems—food, disease, refugees—but share the goal of responding to emergencies and are each developing their own AI tools. If each proceeds separately, without links between data and standards, projects risk remaining confined to individual sectors or territories. According to the lawmaker, South Korea could play a role in turning this fragmentation into shared capacity, provided it plans in advance.
The parliamentarian argues that a democratic country with technological capabilities across the entire value chain can design a public AI ecosystem together with partner countries, in compliance with the principles of sovereignty and solidarity. Korean companies and research institutes could collaborate with the hub to engage with the real public demand of developing countries, co-design solutions and submit them for verification by international bodies before bringing them to the global market.
Cha cites figures to argue that the hub must address concrete problems and reduce inequalities, not just pursue abstract goals: approximately 4.5 billion people lack adequate access to essential health services, 645 million suffer from chronic hunger and 273 million children and adolescents are out of school. Because the hub would not be an exclusively Korean body but would require international cooperation, he adds, its operational direction, executive plan, financial resources and decision-making system should be discussed in advance.
Along the same lines, Lim Mun-young, also speaking to the newspaper, considers a competitive escalation inadvisable while the operating plan is not yet defined. He said it is necessary to build a framework for collaboration on technology and data and to identify success stories. The hub, he added, should be consistent with the values of the “AI Basic Society” and “AI Democracy” proclaimed by the government, with the national industrial strategy aimed at exporting AI across the entire value chain, and with the foreign policy that seeks to strengthen a third way of technological cooperation between the United States and China.
Some elements remain to be verified: the material does not specify which specific international functions the hub would host, nor the detailed content of the four criteria, the resources allocated or the weight of local candidacies. The decision expected in December will clarify the site, but not necessarily the operating model that critics are asking to define beforehand.
