South Korea Launches Universal Free AI Plan: ₩200 Billion Budgeted, Runner-Up "Korea's Top Model" Motif 3 Still in the Game

WatchTower AI Beat News Flash: South Korea is preparing to test "Universal Free AI" starting in September. The bidding was won by a consortium of SK Telecom, KT, and Kakao, with an official launch by the end of the year. South Korean citizens can use it for free, with no Token limit. The government has allocated a total of 512 Nvidia B200 cards to the three entities this year. With an estimated usage of 4 times per person per day, each time receiving 500 Tokens in response, these cards could theoretically support around 18.4 million daily active users.

The government has also mandated that at least half of the AI services be provided by South Korea's own proprietary base models, with an additional 30% to be allocated to models from other South Korean companies. Previously eliminated in the South Korean "National Team" selection, Motif 3 has now been included in the model pools of both SKT and KT.

Motif 3 scored 47 points on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, the highest among the competing South Korean models, but was eliminated in the August 18th evaluation of the "Domestic Base Model National Team." Ten days later, it joined the Universal Free AI project, with both SKT and KT including it in their model pools. Even though it didn't make it into the national team, it will still be available to all national users.

Currently, South Korea has around 23 million users of generative AI, but most are still using overseas products like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Therefore, this evaluation did not prioritize model scores: service reach and user acquisition accounted for 50 points, while model quality, stability, and security combined for only 30 points. The ultimate winners are SKT, KT, and Kakao, each with a strong foothold in communication, portals, and super app access. Model companies are more in a supporting role.