South Korea is embracing AI far more enthusiastically than the US, driven by government policy to make the country a top-three AI power and a cultural conviction that technology modernizes the nation.

What happened: Only 16% of South Koreans say they are more concerned than excited about AI—the lowest of 25 countries surveyed by Pew Research Center—while 50% of Americans are more worried than excited. A majority of Koreans use AI daily. The government has launched a Presidential Council on National AI Strategy and a sovereign AI foundation model project after President Lee Jae-myung took office in 2025, pledging to vault South Korea into the ranks of the "top three AI powers" alongside the US and China.

Why it matters: South Korea's rapid transformation from poverty to economic powerhouse through successive technology waves (steel, semiconductors, broadband, smartphones) has created a deep cultural conviction that embracing technology is essential to the nation's survival and prosperity. The government has engineered this enthusiasm through aggressive promotion and investment, and the Stanford AI Index ranked South Korea as having the third largest number of notable AI models in the world. For a small country, AI represents a chance to punch above its weight economically.

What to watch: South Korea's single-minded focus on AI development over safety considerations carries blind spots. In 2025, the government faced backlash for deploying AI textbooks riddled with factual inaccuracies and data privacy risks without pilot testing, and 64% of South Koreans fear AI could displace human labor and worsen inequality—a concern dramatized when the Hyundai Motor Group union protested the company's plan to deploy Atlas humanoid robots across factories in January.