Seoul: South Korea will launch a sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) model specializing in cybersecurity by the year's end to respond to growing security threats in the digital space, the science minister said Thursday. Minister Bae Kyung-hoon's comments come amid growing concerns over digital security after Washington abruptly imposed export controls on its advanced AI models, including Anthropic's Mythos 5, which specializes in vulnerability detection.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Minister Bae announced during a policy briefing held in Cheong Wa Dae, presided over by President Lee Jae Myung, that South Korea is actively working to develop an AI model focused on cybersecurity by training its existing sovereign AI on security-related data. The minister highlighted that the current level of South Korea's sovereign AI is insufficient to address evolving cybersecurity threats, particularly those enhanced by generative AI, and emphasized the need to develop a frontier model comparable to Mythos in the future.

Bae expressed his belief that South Korea has the potential to build a model of similar caliber. However, he pointed out that the ministry currently faces limitations in supplying a sufficient number of graphic processing units to companies striving to develop advanced foundation models, and he appealed for increased budgetary support from the government.

During the briefing, officials explored ways to institutionalize "white hacking," which involves legally breaching computer systems with the owner's consent to identify vulnerabilities. A science ministry official mentioned that preparations are underway for legislation that would provide legal grounds to conduct ethical hacking on companies without their consent under specific conditions for vulnerability detection.

Minister Bae also mentioned that South Korea ranks third globally in AI competitiveness according to an international ranking agency. He expressed optimism that the country could advance to second place in the next assessment, which is scheduled to be announced in August.