Presidential rivals sell economic policy visions around AI, deregulation, reshoring

Promising to transform Korea into a top artificial intelligence (AI) superpower, abolish regulatory hurdles and lure back overseas factories, key presidential hopefuls have made ambitious economic pledges the centerpiece of their campaigns, with the official election period having kicked off this week. The two leading contenders, Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and Kim Moon-soo of the People Power Party (PPP), alongside Lee Jun-seok of the minor New Reform Party (NRP), have unveiled their top 10 campaign pledges, all with a heavy focus on rebooting the sluggish economy. In a policy overlap, both Lee and Kim vowed to help turn Korea into one of the world's top three AI powers, with Lee promising to promote private investment of 100 trillion won (US$70.4 billion) and Kim pledging to create a joint public-private AI fund in the same amount. Lee says he will, if elected, work to significantly expand AI-related government budgets and secure more than 50,000 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), positioning the sector as a key engine to drive the country's ecWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times