[Edaily Reporter Kim Hyun-ah ] South Korea has been assessed as holding a “solid third place” in the global AI competition, following the United States and China. In particular, analysts note that domestic startups such as Motif Technologies and Upstage have demonstrated the competitiveness of South Korea’s AI ecosystem by achieving the highest performance levels among AI models from countries other than the U.S. and China.

Global AI analytics firm Artificial Analysis announced on the 26th via X, using its Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (AAII), that “South Korea has once again secured a clear third place in the global AI competition, following the U.S. and China.”

According to the AAII, Motif Technologies’ “Motif 3” recorded the highest score at 47 points. Upstage’s “Solar Pro 4” scored 42 points, #SKTelecom’s “A.X K2” scored 35 points, and LG Corp. AI Research’s “K-EXAONE 2.0” scored 31 points.

Notably, Motif and Upstage both scored over 40 points, earning recognition as the highest-scoring models developed outside the U.S. and China in the AAII evaluation. With SKTelecom and LG Corp. AI Research also scoring over 30 points, this confirms that South Korea’s AI model development ecosystem is growing robustly across the board, rather than being limited to specific companies.

Artificial Analysis cited domestic talent, public investment, and the competitive incentives created by South Korea’s Sovereign AI Foundation Model Project as the driving forces behind the growth of the country’s AI ecosystem. It also noted that companies such as Trillion Labs and KTCorporation(030200) are building their own model families, indicating that the domestic AI model development sector has become deeper and more competitive compared to a year ago.

Political circles also assessed these results as a significant achievement for Korea’s AI competitiveness.

Rep. Lim Moon-young of the Democratic Party of Korea posted on his social media, “Our country has once again confirmed its solid third-place position in the AI model competition,” adding, “While the AAII announcement isn’t the whole story, it holds great significance as an achievement just one year after the Lee Jae-myung administration established its AI growth strategy.”

In particular, Rep. Lim specifically mentioned Motif and Upstage, noting, “The achievements made by these startups will serve as a model for driving new changes in the future.”

He emphasized, “We still have a long way to go,” adding, “When we consider building the ecosystem, linking it to our traditional manufacturing sector, and ensuring the public can tangibly feel the benefits in their daily lives, we are truly only at the beginning.” He argued that a complete transformation centered on AI must be achieved across all sectors, from semiconductors to automobiles and defense.

Ha Jeong-woo, former Senior Secretary for AI and Future Planning at the Office of the President, also viewed these results positively.

Ha stated, “The AAII, which is the most widely recognized global organization, has officially recognized Korea as the No. 3 nation in the AI race,” adding, “Based on open-weight models, Korea has surpassed the U.S. to rank second and holds a commanding third place overall.”

He continued, “Even considering the current limitations of the benchmarks, this achievement in itself is highly significant,” adding, “It is a result achieved through the combined efforts of the national AI strategy and leading domestic companies with innovative capabilities.”

Regarding future policy directions, he emphasized, “We must continue to focus our support and investment on the most innovative players—regardless of size—who demonstrate both capability and commitment, in order to enhance our competitiveness.”

However, there were also signs that the competitive structure of the independent AI foundation model initiative itself may change.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon, while reporting on the future direction of the independent AI model development initiative at a Cabinet meeting presided over by President Lee Jae-myung the previous day, stated, “When we first started, South Korea’s GPU resources were so limited that we structured the program as a competitive, ‘first-come, first-served’ approach, but it seems we cannot continue this way.”

Until now, the government has promoted the independent AI model initiative by having multiple companies compete for limited GPU resources and narrowing down the list of recipients through phased evaluations. Deputy Prime Minister Bae’s remarks are interpreted as acknowledging the limitations of this existing competitive model and hinting at the possibility of redesigning the support and competition structure for the independent AI initiative.

Currently, domestic independent AI models have approximately 300 to 750 billion parameters, whereas global Big Tech’s frontier models exceed several trillion parameters. Referring to this technological gap, Deputy Prime Minister Bae announced that next year, the government will invest more GPUs and data to take on the challenge of developing top-tier frontier models.

Given that the AAII has confirmed South Korea’s position as the third-ranked global AI competitor, attention is now focused on whether new support and competition mechanisms—such as the establishment of special-purpose corporations (SPCs) for the development of frontier-level AI—will be introduced for independent AI initiatives, moving beyond a system that simply eliminates companies.