South Korea’s sovereign AI competition has narrowed down to three teams after Motif Technologies was eliminated from the running. The startup, which had brought a 314B-parameter model to the table, failed to meet the evaluation criteria that shifted toward real-world usability over raw benchmarks.
The competition, which began with five teams in August 2025, has been scaled down due to the high stakes and demanding process. The Ministry of Science and ICT has emphasized industrial applicability, real-world capabilities, and public usability in the latest evaluation round.
LG AI Research leads the pack with its K-EXAONE 2.0 model at 750 billion parameters, followed closely by SK Telecom’s A.X K2 at 688 billion parameters. Upstage rounds out the trio with Solar Open 2 at 250 billion parameters. The remaining contenders are required to provide at least half the inference capacity for a national free AI assistant, a public utility available to all of South Korea’s 51 million citizens.
The competition is expected to conclude by late 2026 or early 2027, with two final champions to be selected. South Korea has been building a legislative framework around this ambition, including the AI Basic Act, which aims to support domestic AI development while establishing governance guardrails.
Evaluation Criteria Shift
The Ministry of Science and ICT has emphasized industrial applicability, real-world capabilities, and public usability in the latest evaluation round, shifting the focus from raw benchmarks to practical applications.
Remaining Contenders
LG AI Research, SK Telecom, and Upstage are the three teams standing after Motif Technologies was eliminated from the competition. Each team has been equipped with approximately 768 NVIDIA B200 GPUs.
National Free AI Assistant
The remaining contenders are required to provide at least half the inference capacity for a national free AI assistant, a public utility available to all of South Korea’s 51 million citizens.
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