South Korea to Give All Citizens Free Access to Generative AI
South Korea will provide every citizen with free access to generative AI services under the “AI for All” program, aiming to move all interactions with government agencies—from doctor appointments and tax filing to job and housing help—onto AI, free and without token limits. The Ministry of Science and ICT has selected three consortia: telecom operators SK Telecom and KT, plus Kakao, which will share 512 Nvidia B200 GPUs allocated by the state, with operating costs covered by the government starting next year.
Participation comes with strings: basic citizen-facing functions must stay free even beyond government subsidies, at least half of the service’s responses must rely on domestic AI models (A.X K2, Solar, EXAONE, Kanana, and others), and operators may train their own models on service data in return. Contracts are expected next month with a launch by the end of the year. Roughly a quarter of South Koreans already pay for generative AI—versus about 2% of premium AI subscribers in the US—and over 20 million use free versions.
Related: Malta Becomes First Country to Give All Citizens Free ChatGPT Plus