South Korea AI budget exceeds 5 trillion won as hacking response funds lag

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT has seen its artificial intelligence (AI) budget surpass 5 trillion won, while the budget for hacking response and prevention has remained disproportionately low. Data released by lawmaker Lee Hun-gi reveals that the 2026 AI budget is set at approximately 5.09 trillion won, whereas the budget for hacking countermeasures is only 79.06 billion won, representing just 1.6% of the AI allocation.

While the AI budget has grown by 345.9% since 2024, the hacking response budget has seen much slower growth and actually decreased slightly by about 423 million won compared to the previous year. This widening gap has seen the ratio of hacking response funds relative to the AI budget drop from 5.6% in 2024 to 1.6% in 2026.

Although the overall budget for information protection and cybersecurity is increasing, its proportion relative to the AI budget has fallen from 28% to 7.2% over the same period. The Ministry of Science and ICT is responsible for both fostering the AI industry and managing information protection, and it plans to develop security-specialized AI models to address evolving cyber threats.