Global AI race accelerates as Korea drifts amid stalled reforms and fragile strategy
The global race in artificial intelligence has largely centered on the combination of OpenAI’s algorithms and Nvidia’s silicon. With the unveiling of "Gemini 3.0" last week, however, Google upended the industry’s strategic chessboard.
By demonstrating that state-of-the-art models can outperform incumbents using proprietary Ironwood tensor processing units rather than Nvidia’s flagship chips, Google has signaled the end of a unipolar AI order.
For South Korea, standing at the periphery of this tectonic shift, the message is clear: The window to secure sovereign AI is closing, and our current strategic lethargy is becoming an existential liability.
The numbers alone explain the commotion. On “Humanity’s Last Exam,” a trial designed to stretch reasoning to its limits, Gemini 3.0 scored 37.5 percent, while OpenAI’s GPT 5.1 managed 26.5 percent and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 landed at 13.7 percent.
In MathArena Apex, where complex mathematical reasoning is the currency, Google’s system posted 23.4 percent. Rival models hovered near 1 percent. Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman calls himself the underdog now, a line that would have seemed fanciful not long ago.
Google’s advance suggests that the winning structure for the next phase of AI would be vertically integrated systems controlling both model architecture and custom chips. Investors took notice, and the announcement moved share prices of Google parent Alphabet and Nvidia. Reports that Meta is weighing the adoption of tensor processing units added another twist. The idea of a single indispensable supplier now looks outdated.
This turn carries implications well beyond Silicon Valley.
The shift toward specialized chips is widening the market for application-specific designs. That includes memory where demand for high-bandwidth memory is already strong.
Hardware fragmentation offers a mix of opportunity and peril for Korean semiconductor giants. As the market diversifies, demand is exploding for low-power, high-performance memory like LPDDR5X/6, an area where Samsung Electronics and SK hynix excel. Furthermore, Big Tech’s multifoundry strategy to reduce reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. opens critical doors for Samsung’s foundry business.
Nevertheless, Korean players cannot afford to remain complacent. China’s CXMT has recently unveiled cutting-edge LPDDR5X-10667 modules, narrowing the technological gap with Korea to less than a year.
While global competitors engage in a fierce battle for survival, Seoul remains shackled by self-imposed regulatory fetters. It is untenable that Korean research and development talent is bound by a rigid 52-hour workweek while Nvidia engineers burn the midnight oil and Chinese firms operate on the intense "996" routine that totals 72 working hours a week.
The intention behind the law was sound, but critics argue that applying it uniformly to frontier R&D reduces competitiveness precisely when speed matters most. A “white collar exemption” similar to the US approach or a high-level professional system like Japan’s would allow flexibility without discarding worker protections.
Simultaneously, South Korea’s energy policy remains trapped in ideological obsolescence. While the US, France and the UK aggressively expand nuclear capacity to feed voracious data centers, Korean policymakers waste precious time debating solar power, which cannot provide the baseload stability required for the AI age.
The Gemini shock serves as a blunt reminder that no firm or nation holds a permanent advantage. AI is a speed race shaped by hardware strategy, energy capacity and the policies that govern work and investment. Korea cannot stake its future on imported platforms while rivals sprint ahead.
Securing sovereign AI is not a slogan, but an economic necessity. The National Assembly should move quickly on a semiconductor bill that grants R&D flexibility. The government must settle on an energy plan that matches the scale of coming demand. Industry leaders need to secure super gap technologies in memory and foundry services before competitors close in.
A world accelerating toward AI will not pause for Korea’s arguments. The window for action is open, but not for long.
khnews@heraldcorp.com
