South Korea has launched a government-backed competition that mirrors Squid Game, blending entertainment with tech. Tens of thousands tuned in to the live-streamed event as engineers showcased their AI models on stage, cheering every reveal.
Assistant Professor Chanjun Park told Bloomberg, “It may look like a spectacle, but this is a high-stakes contest that will shape Korea’s future.”
It’s built to be watchable, but it’s also a message: Korea wants to be taken seriously in AI, not just as an adopter, but as a builder.
Contestants are pushed to their limits. Long hours, public scrutiny, and the uncomfortable feeling that your model is being judged by reviewers, and moreover, the crowd.
How the “AI Squid Game” works
The competition runs over a year, with teams evaluated and eliminated every six months. Winners get access to GPUs and datasets. Teams that drop out lose those resources.
Government guidelines stress originality too. The idea is simple – build from scratch, don’t lean on foreign tech. Korea is making sovereign AI a major national goal and treating it as a priority.
South Korea is openly challenging US and Chinese dominance in AI, pitching itself as a credible third power.
Minister Bae Kyung-hoon told Bloomberg, “There are several countries vying to be No. 3, but we don’t see ourselves as just another contender in that pack.”
“We believe we have a real shot at becoming a serious global player – one capable of challenging the top two,” he said.
Stakes, controversy, and human cost
Korea wants to scale quickly. It already has its own chips, cloud infrastructure, and a population that tends to adopt new tech quickly. If the models are strong enough, deployment probably won’t be the bottleneck.
It also fits a wider shift, as other countries, from France to Saudi Arabia, are betting on domestic AI models too, especially as AI gets baked into everyday life and work.
Korea is trying to convert industrial strength into frontier AI, and it’s doing it with a format that keeps everyone moving.
Eliminations have stirred a debate, especially around claims of foreign tech use by Naver and Upstage.
The government is sticking to its line – homegrown means homegrown, and originality matters for both national pride and commercial advantage.
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