South Korea reopens AI military service at big labs — SkimNews
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- South Korea's Military Manpower Administration will restore large-company placements in its alternative military service programme from 2027, ending a 14-year halt imposed in 2013 to protect small and medium-sized firms' R&D hiring.
- Four companies – LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Samsung Medison and HD Hyundai Robotics – were recommended to participate, requesting 81 placements across nine research institutes, about two-thirds of the 120 slots reserved for large-company labs.
- The 2027 allocation totals 240 positions for master's-level AI researchers, split evenly between large-company labs and government-funded and defence-industry research institutes, with large-company slots running only through end-2029.
- To qualify, companies must spend at least 5% of revenue on R&D, avoid fields that directly compete with smaller firms, and demonstrate objectively verifiable research achievements — criteria that already caused some applicants to miss recommendations.
- The MMA must still approve the participating institutes, meaning the final number of placements could fall below the 81 requested, with 39 slots already unsubscribed at the recommendation stage.
- Representative Hwang Jung-a of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea urged bolder expansion, calling the requirements "so rigid that they may limit the impact" of the programme's reopening.
Why it matters: South Korea's planners see retaining frontier-AI researchers as strategically vital, but the uptake data signals friction: only four firms pursued 81 of the 120 reserved seats, 39 of those seats went unclaimed at the recommendation stage, and MMA approval has yet to land — meaning the strict 5%-of-revenue R&D threshold and SME-protection rules may screen out the mid-tier players needed to widen national AI capacity.
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