Domestically Producing AI Chip Design Technology Through Collaboration Between Research Institutes and Companies
A total of 1.096 trillion won will be invested in the field over the next 10 years.


The foundation for technological independence in the AI semiconductor field has been laid.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and SK Telecom announced that they will develop an NPU-based AI semiconductor, 'AB9', through joint research and promote verification through application to AI infrastructure and products.

AI semiconductors are optimized for intelligent services such as complex situation recognition, learning, and inference by quickly processing large amounts of data with low power consumption.

Since 2016, the Ministry of Science and ICT has been promoting the development of AI semiconductor technology through national research and development, and as a result, ETRI and SKT have successfully developed the first AI semiconductor in Korea that can be used in high-performance servers.

The research team integrated 16,384 cores into an area the size of a coin (17 mm x 23 mm) and applied software technology that can turn the power of each computing device on and off.

Through this, an AI semiconductor capable of processing data 40 trillion times per second (40TFLOPS) and consuming low power of 15 to 40W was developed.

Starting in the second half of this year, the research team plans to demonstrate the developed chip at SKT's data center and begin commercialization in earnest.


Visual intelligence AI semiconductors for mobile and IoT devices
A visual intelligence AI semiconductor that can recognize objects like humans and can be applied to intelligent CCTVs and drones was also developed in collaboration with ETRI, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (KETI), and fabless companies such as FA Linux, Nextchip, and AD Technology.

The research team succeeded in developing a small chip that enables various mobile and IoT devices to recognize objects at a human level by applying high-efficiency design and software technology that achieves high accuracy even at low power.

Cut to half the size of an adult fingernail (5mm x 5mm)While minimizing the area, it has achieved performance capable of recognizing objects 30 times per second with 0.5W of power, which is less than 1/10 of that of existing semiconductors.

The research team plans to pursue verification and commercialization linked to the commercialization of AI-based intelligent devices in fields such as video surveillance and reconnaissance starting in the second half of this year.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to support the revitalization of the domestic AI semiconductor ecosystem through technology transfer of research results and distribution of source software, and to support the international standardization of domestic technologies.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy plan to invest a total of 1.096 trillion won in next-generation intelligent semiconductor technology development projects from this year to 2029.

Minister of Science and ICT Choi Ki-young said, “We will also support challenging research such as semiconductor technology that integrates memory and computation (Processing-In-Memory (PIM)).”