**Interview with Yeom Jae-ho, Vice Chairman of the National AI Committee**
**Our nation, lacking investment capacity, cannot excel in all areas. We should focus on applied AI in fields like manufacturing and finance. It’s necessary to establish a unique Korean ecosystem for AI use, technology, and security policies. Future education should develop problem-solving abilities and focus on nurturing talents with emotional intelligence and collaboration skills. There is a need to establish a dedicated institution for data.**
**Yeom Jae-ho, Vice Chairman of the National AI Committee, emphasized that AI is a disruptive innovation technology that accelerates a major civilizational shift, much like metal type. He stated that the industrial structure, education system, and government system, designed under the mass production structure post-industrialization, need to be completely restructured around AI.**
In an interview with Maeil Business News on the 16th, Vice Chairman Yeom, who holds a ministerial-level position, mentioned, “It’s time for a comprehensive response at the national level to prepare for the ‘AI Grand Transformation’ era.”
**Yeom is a respected figure in education and a former president of Korea University. During his presidency, he was known as an “icon of innovation” for radical reforms like abolishing attendance rolls, exam supervision, and relative evaluation, as well as eliminating essay screenings and merit-based scholarships. After retiring from Korea University in 2019, he led the establishment of Taejae University, dubbed as the ‘Korean Minerva University,’ and has been serving as its inaugural president since September 2023. Since September last year, he has also been the Vice Chairman of the Presidential National AI Committee, designing a grand framework for Korea’s AI strategy.**
**Yeom underscored the importance of accurately understanding the era of ‘AI Grand Transformation,’ where AI is applied comprehensively to everyday life, industry fields, and the public sector, causing fundamental structural changes in the national economy and society. He explained, “Just as machines drastically increased productivity by replacing human physical strength, AI will increasingly replace human brains, making the active and skilled use of the ‘second brain,’ AI, a key differentiator.”**
**To rise as an ‘AI powerhouse’ in the global AI supremacy competition, Yeom stressed that Korea must swiftly build ‘Sovereign AI,’ a unique Korean AI ecosystem. He pointed out that Korea doesn’t need to adopt identical growth strategies just because OpenAI and big American tech companies are competitively investing heavily in AI. “If general-purpose AI services like ChatGPT are likened to highways, rather than thinking we must build all highways ourselves, it might be a superior strategy to create high-value vehicles that run well on these highways,” he explained. This means developing specialized applied vertical AI services in fields like manufacturing and finance, leveraging foreign big tech’s AI models and open-source resources, could be more effective.**
**Yeom stated that while Korea hasn’t developed a global search engine like Google, it does have Naver, optimized for Korea, and although MS Word is dominant for document writing, Korea also widely uses Hangul Word Processor. He emphasized the importance of securing our own independent AI model capabilities while strategically utilizing global resources.**
**However, he stressed the need for Korea to have its own standards when using overseas AI resources. “Collaboration without leadership and standards can lead to technological dependence and data leakage,” he cautioned, adding that “AI ecosystem design should incorporate our unique philosophy and perspective, not just technology development, but also usage methods, standards, education, and data security policies.”**
**For Korea to establish itself as an AI powerhouse, special attention to nurturing talent is essential. “In the AI era, needed talents are not merely those who can code or handle tools, but learners who can define and interpret problems and critically utilize technology,” Yeom emphasized, adding that future education should focus on cultivating talents with problem-solving skills, emotional intelligence, and collaborative abilities.**
**Reiterating the importance of national AI policy consistency and the government-led design of the AI ecosystem, Yeom noted, “With less investment capacity compared to competitors like the USA and China, Korea needs to expand government roles to solve tasks that cannot be handled by private efforts alone.” He explained that the government should actively support computing infrastructure, talent, and data resources to create a virtuous cycle in the AI infrastructure-model-service ecosystem.**
He particularly emphasized the need to expand large-scale computing centers as national strategic assets, secure independent AI models, and reinforce support for young AI researchers and convergent talents. Furthermore, he suggested revising legacy legal systems like the Personal Information Protection Act and Copyright Act to align with the AI era.
Yeom also highlighted the urgent task of organizing ‘data’ infrastructure. He suggested reviewing the establishment of a designated institution for systematic data management alongside an AI control tower encompassing infrastructure, technology, and talent development. He remarked, “Data is a more political asset than technology,” stressing the need for Korea to manage data meticulously in a strategic international landscape where countries competitively determine data collection, processing, and sharing policies.
Finally, he advocated for internalizing AI utilization capabilities across the economy and society. Yeom stated, “If 50 million Koreans develop a designer’s mindset beyond that of a user in utilizing AI, we can become a country that not only consumes technology but also leads and designs AI ecosystems.”