ROUNDTABLE Korea's blueprint: Become indispensable player in AI world

By Nam Hyun-woo

• Published Nov 4, 2026 7:00 AM KST
• Updated Nov 4, 2026 7:51 AM KST

AI infrastructure, tacit data as tools for forward industrial base for allies

As the United States and China race to dominate artificial intelligence (AI), Korea should focus on making itself indispensable to the two superpowers rather than simply trying to catch up in the development of cutting-edge technologies, experts said during The Korea Times roundtable “Beyond US-China AI race: Korea's strategic edge."

They suggested that Korea could secure a unique position in the global AI landscape by leveraging its manufacturing capabilities, industrial know-how and advanced semiconductor supply chain, as well as building AI infrastructure that would deepen its strategic importance to the U.S. and its allies.

Lee Do-kyung, founder and CEO of Bone AI, proposed developing Korea into a “forward-deployed industrial base” for the U.S. and its allies, combining American technologies with Korea's manufacturing capabilities to produce, deploy and maintain AI-powered systems in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Even if a single motor breaks down, a drone cannot operate, and sourcing new parts from the U.S. mainland can take three to four months by sea,” Lee said. “The U.S. and its allies need partners that can manufacture and repair equipment locally, deploy and operate it in the field and help build the industrial capabilities needed to sustain attritable systems, drones and other robotic systems in operational environments.”

An attritable military system is designed to be cheap enough to lose in combat without significantly affecting overall operational capabilities. Drones, a prime example, are playing an increasingly critical role in modern conflicts. Lee said Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, has also expressed the need for partners to help the U.S. military in Korea expand such capabilities.

The capability Lee was referring to has a broader meaning than simply manufacturing drones or developing AI models. It involves operational knowledge that only companies working in the field can accumulate, such as understanding why a system fails in real-world conditions and how to repair and operate them effectively.

Lim Jong-in, former presidential cybersecurity adviser and Soongsil University AI committee chair, also stressed that Korea should not abandon competition in frontier AI models, but should simultaneously explore how to apply the tacit knowledge accumulated through decades of manufacturing experience to physical AI. Tacit knowledge refers to practical expertise and know-how gained through experience that is difficult to record in traditional documentation.

“One example is Korea’s shipbuilding sector,” Lim said. “Welding ships requires skills and know-how that workers acquire through years of experience. Korea is already struggling to find enough skilled workers for these jobs. What we need to do — and what the industry is already working on — is turn the tacit knowledge accumulated by these experienced craftsmen into a structured set of data that can be used to train humanoid robots.”

Reform Party of Korea Rep. Lee Jun-seok also agreed, saying that China's dominance in humanoid robots does not mean Korea is shut out of opportunities in physical AI.

“What we need to question is whether humanoid robots are optimal for industrial use,” he said. “In Star Wars, we can see both R2-D2 and C-3PO. The question is whether factories would be better served by specialized robots like R2-D2 or humanoid robots like C-3PO.

“If we think about what kind of physical AI robots Korea should develop, the answer could be specialized machines such as welding robots. At a robotics exhibition in China, dancing humanoids attracted the most attention, but the booths that drew the most buyers were those showcasing robots specialized in cleaning toilets.”

Indispensable Korea

Kim Sung-han, former national security adviser and professor emeritus of international relations at Korea University, said such efforts should be accompanied by a broader strategy to make Korea indispensable across the AI supply chain.

“Korea's current strength in the AI supply chain is largely because high bandwidth memory (HBM) has fortunately become a critical component of AI accelerators,” Kim said. “But there are lingering concerns about when this cycle will end. Korea therefore needs to secure an indispensable position in the AI supply chain. To do so, we must build our own ecosystem, including advanced packaging technologies.”

Rep. Lee also proposed turning Korea into a global AI infrastructure hub by combining its strengths in semiconductors, energy and telecommunications to host large-scale data centers and undersea cable networks.

“A friend of mine in the data center industry once joked that Korea is an ideal location for U.S. data centers because of its roughly 12-hour time difference, which could help operators optimize their operations by distributing computing workloads across different time zones,” Lee said.

“I believe it is extremely important to build an infrastructure ecosystem centered on Korea. Even if companies do business with China, they would not want to locate their data centers or management operations in a country where data sovereignty could be at risk.”

Rep. Lee argued that hosting critical U.S. AI infrastructure could also strengthen Korea's strategic importance to Washington by creating a “tripwire” effect, in which any threat to Korean data centers or communications networks would directly affect American interests. Such interdependence, he said, could make Korea more indispensable to the U.S. not only as a technology supplier, but also as a strategic partner in the AI era.