South Korea will continue its sovereign AI foundation model program but restructure it into two tracks after the third evaluation: frontier AI development and industrial deployment. Officials said the original target of reaching 95% of the performance of the world’s leading AI models was no longer sufficient as global competition accelerated. The revised frontier program will select core companies through an open call and evaluation, with an equity-based structure under consideration so returns flow back to the public. The government previously said next year’s budget would provide 4.7 trillion won ($3.3 billion) for frontier AI development, including support centered on 10,000 Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs and data. The call is planned for around the end of the year after the National Assembly passes next year’s budget, with development potentially beginning as early as March. Companies not chosen for the frontier track, including those involved in the third evaluation, will receive separate support to deploy sovereign AI models across industries. The initiative forms part of a broader approximately $880–900 billion, or around 1,350 trillion won, public-private AI strategy covering memory chips, data centers, robotics and physical AI.