🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

South Korea’s rise draws on policy support and viral trends

• Growth is tied to the “Digital New Deal,” a South Korean investment program for digital infrastructure and technology. It includes 160 trillion won (US$117 billion), with 23% set aside for AI computing capacity and connectivity 1.
• Firms that build AI infrastructure projects under government rules can get tax breaks and low-interest loans through the program 1.
• Meanwhile, South Korea’s market for AI-optimized data centers, facilities built for AI workloads, could reach US$1.89 billion by 2030. AI-ready halls in Seoul cost about US$12 million per megawatt (MW) to build 1.
• Popular culture also sped up adoption. “Ghibli-style” image generation, based on the visual style linked to Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation company, pulled in new users who later kept using the tools 2.

Adoption rates suggest infrastructure is only part of per-capita usage

• Smaller, highly digitized countries such as the UAE suggest that a lower population can still produce higher usage per person 3.
• South Korea’s experience suggests that better local-language performance in AI models can drive user growth 4.
• For AI companies and policymakers, cultural and language fit can shape adoption as much as more computing power 5.