Nearly half of new Korean AI services based on Chinese foundation models
Korea's artificial intelligence (AI) development ecosystem is increasingly relying on Chinese foundation models, with data showing that nearly half of the models newly released by local developers this year were built on them, raising concerns that the country's AI industry could become technologically subordinate to China. According to a recent report by think tank Rockbridge Network Korea,…
A recent analysis by The Korea Times reveals that nearly half of the new AI services launched by Korean developers this year are based on Chinese foundation models, raising concerns about the potential technological subordination of Korea's AI industry to China. According to data from the think tank Rockbridge Network Korea, 49.3% of the 1,845 models published by Korean accounts on Hugging Face between January and August were constructed on Chinese models, compared to 35.9% based on U.S. models and 14.9% on domestic models.
The reliance on Chinese models has been on the rise, with the share of new models built on Chinese foundations increasing from 1.2% in 2023 to 22% in 2025, nearly doubling this year. Qwen, developed by Baidu, was the most widely used foundation model, accounting for 46.8% of the total, followed by Google's Gemma and Meta's Llama.
Brief written by urgent.news from The Korea Times's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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