A parliamentary forum discussing South Korea’s new AI Basic Law (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — At a parliamentary forum discussing South Korea’s new AI Basic Law, tech industry leaders highlighted the mounting challenges in securing training data for artificial intelligence systems, with some materials costing over 1 million won per book to acquire through web crawling.
“We’re facing a significant shortage of AI training data,” said Lee Young-tak, head of Growth Support at SK Telecom, speaking at the forum held on February 26 at the National Assembly. “We need to establish social consensus on reasonable copyright fees for AI training purposes.”
The discussion, hosted by Democratic Party lawmaker Cho In-cheol, focused on implementing the AI Basic Law, which passed the National Assembly last December to support AI development and ensure reliability as AI usage surges.
Bae Soonmin, head of KT’s AI Future Lab, emphasized the time-consuming process of securing data rights. “We’re having to negotiate contracts with copyright holders one by one,” he said. “We need a national effort to collect Korean-specific data.” Bae particularly noted that South Korea’s manufacturing data, while abundant, remains largely inaccessible to AI companies, representing a significant loss of national competitive advantage.
Shin Sang-ryeol, director of the National AI Commission, acknowledged that despite discussions with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism last year, concrete solutions for copyright issues have yet to emerge. The commission plans to present a framework this year.
Industry experts also called for flexible regulation implementation. “If regulations are too strict, the AI industry could wither before it even develops,” Lee warned, advocating for a balanced approach to the new law’s application.
In response, Gong Jin-ho, director of AI Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, promised minimal regulation: “We’ll prepare a draft enforcement decree in March and give industry sufficient preparation time.”
The discussion also touched on talent acquisition challenges. Chung Jinwoo, co-founder of TwelveLabs, cited examples from other countries: “The Netherlands offers 30% tax benefits for five years to attract tech immigrants, while Canada became an AI hub by recruiting global scholars.”
The AI Basic Law, set to take effect in January 2026, includes provisions for establishing three-year basic plans, supporting R&D, designating AI clusters, and operating data centers. The government plans to finalize subordinate regulations and guidelines in the first half of this year.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
