# Korea’s AI chief puts execution at heart of national AI push > Source: > Published: 2026-08-31 09:37:11+00:00 Presidential Council on National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Standing Vice Chair Ha Jung-woo said Monday the government would shift its AI policy focus from setting strategies to delivering results that businesses and the public can feel. At his first press briefing following his appointment Sunday, Ha said Korea had reached a point where it needs to turn its AI ambitions into concrete outcomes if it is to emerge as a leading player in the global AI race. “The council has so far focused on setting the overall strategy and direction,” Ha told reporters in Seoul. “Now, we need to focus on producing results that people can actually feel.” Ha, who previously served as senior presidential secretary for artificial intelligence policy and future planning, laid out three priorities for the council: pooling national resources to make Korea one of the world’s top three AI powers, accelerating AI adoption across industry and the public sector, and expanding access to AI under the government’s “AI for All” initiative. He also clarified how the council would work alongside the presidential office and government ministries as Korea steps up coordination of its AI policies. The presidential office will focus on long-term planning and monitoring policy implementation, while individual ministries will remain responsible for carrying out policies and projects. The council, which brings together Cabinet members and private-sector experts, will coordinate policies across ministries and provide technical guidance. “If the Ministry of Science and ICT is an implementation body, the strategy council is there to coordinate policy and direction across ministries,” Ha said. The council will now put greater weight on turning the government’s AI action plan into investment, industrial growth and visible changes on the ground. Ha said he wanted the government to produce concrete results within the next year as it moves beyond setting broad policy goals. “We want to create results that people can actually see and feel in their daily lives, working together with the ministries,” he said. For businesses, Ha identified data access and permitting for AI data centers as two of the most pressing hurdles. Restrictions on data use continue to complicate AI development and commercialization, while approval procedures can slow the expansion of large-scale computing infrastructure, according to Ha. Ha said Korea needed to look at its AI supply chain as a whole, spanning electricity, semiconductors, graphics processing units, data centers and data. While the country has secured more GPUs over the past year, supplies remain insufficient. Heavy reliance on a single supplier also poses a risk, underscoring the need to diversify procurement and strengthen Korea’s domestic AI semiconductor industry. Power supply is another issue the government will have to address as investment in AI data centers accelerates. Ha said the council planned to work with relevant ministries to prevent electricity constraints from becoming a bottleneck to AI infrastructure development. Beyond infrastructure, Ha stressed the need for Korea to retain the ability to develop and operate advanced AI models on its own. Export controls and other restrictions imposed by major economies could limit access to cutting-edge technologies, he said, making excessive reliance on foreign AI models a potential risk to both industrial competitiveness and national security. Korea may not be able to build the world’s most advanced model in every field, Ha said, but it should be capable of developing and operating competitive models in strategically important areas. That approach could also shape the next phase of the government’s independent AI foundation model project. Ha declined to weigh in on disputes surrounding the elimination of individual companies in the project’s latest evaluation round. Instead, he said the government should revisit a more fundamental question: whether the current framework remains the best way to achieve the program’s original goal. “We need to look again at why we started this project in the first place and whether that objective is still valid,” Ha said. Policymakers should examine whether the current approach can narrow Korea’s gap with the world’s frontier AI leaders and make changes where necessary, he added. If the existing framework proves insufficient, Ha said Korea may need a different approach that brings together its strongest researchers and developers, backed by more concentrated government support in areas such as GPUs and data. The goal, he said, should go beyond developing another model and instead build the domestic capacity to develop, operate and continuously improve advanced AI systems as the technology evolves. Ha said the same emphasis on execution would apply to the government’s broader AI Action Plan and its three mega projects centered on semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centers. “The AI action plan and the three mega projects need to lead to actual policies and projects, investment and industrial growth, and changes that people can feel,” Ha said. “We will closely track their progress and make sure the necessary work is carried through.” yeeun@heraldcorp.com