South Korea’s “AI ambitions” have faced a massive hurdle, as the nation’s supercomputer project has been delayed due to a lack of AI chips.
Gigantic Global Demand Has Made It Difficult For Many Organizations To Get High-End AI Chips, Ultimately Halting Projects
There’s no doubt that multiple countries are in the pursuit of establishing their own AI computing power, aiming to get ahead in the race. Individual companies and nations are involved in building giant AI clusters, which has put massive stress on the overall supply chain. A similar situation is ongoing in South Korea, where the technologically advanced nation is pursuing its AI ambitions and has prioritized being ahead in the AI race.
However, a report by the local media outlet Chosun claims that one of South Korea’s supercomputers, the “Supercomputer No. 6,” has been delayed, citing that the massive demand for AI chips globally has made it difficult for the nation to get their hands on the necessary AI hardware. It is reported that the project has now been delayed to 2026, and with existing supercomputers running at 90% utilization, South Korea is now facing a “computing crisis.”
The planned supercomputer was said to cost around 2.9 trillion won ($2 billion) and is said to be one of the largest projects in the nation, targeting providing AI computing power to researchers and professionals. However, with the significantly high demand, it has become difficult for multiple customers to get their hands on AI chips, and with the supply chain bottlenecks, prices have soared tremendously, forcing organizations to reshape their plans, in order to just the rise in financial costs.
The AI frenzy is far from over for now, as the outlook clearly shows an overall uptrend for the markets, since right now, every tech organization is focused on building their AI compute portfolio, which ultimately will benefit manufacturers like NVIDIA and AMD.
Nations, notably the US and those in the Middle East, have made the development of AI a “national priority,” which hints that a lot of money is going to pour in from these sectors.
