TL;DR
South Korea opened bidding for a free, unlimited AI chatbot for all citizens. At least 50% must use domestic models. Beta in September, full launch by year-end.
South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT opened bidding on July 13 for a free, unlimited AI chatbot and public-service agent available to all 52 million residents. The programme, called “AI for Everyone,” would make South Korea the first G20 nation to offer AI to its entire population as a public service. Two or three companies will be selected and given up to 512 Nvidia B200 GPUs from the government, with applications open through August 11 and a beta launch in September.
The official bidding documents reveal the scale of the problem Seoul is trying to solve. Two-thirds of Koreans have already used AI, and 44.5% (about 23 million) use generative AI regularly, but the vast majority rely on foreign services. ChatGPT leads with 23.45 million Korean users as of April 2026, followed by Gemini at 8.45 million and Claude at 2.41 million. Only 1.8 million Koreans pay for AI services. The programme requires domestic models for at least 50% of the system, with other domestic companies covering at least 30% more. Selected companies must match government GPU support with their own funding. The programme runs through 2030.
The programme follows the deputy prime minister’s statement in May that the benefits of AI must reach the wider public, made as Samsung’s labour union was preparing a strike over how AI-driven profits should be distributed. The “AI for Everyone” initiative is the policy follow-through on that rhetoric, treating AI access as infrastructure rather than a commercial product.
The domestic model requirement is a sovereign AI play disguised as a public service. By mandating that the majority of the system run on Korean models, Seoul is creating a guaranteed market for domestic AI developers while reducing dependence on American and Chinese providers. South Korea is funding its AI ambitions from the chip tax windfall generated by Samsung and SK Hynix, and the “AI for Everyone” programme connects the semiconductor profits at the top of the value chain to the citizen-facing services at the bottom. No other G20 government has attempted anything comparable.
