By Ian Werther in News — 13 Mar 2026

South Korea Unveils 2026 Plan to Strengthen Strategic Tech, AI, and Global Partnerships

The South Korean government has unveiled its 2026 implementation plan to nurture and secure national strategic technologies as part of the 2024–2028 Basic Plan. The plan was approved on the 13th by the National Strategy Technology Special Committee under the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The document frames three core directions as it boosts competitiveness amid global tech rivalry: strengthen the ecosystem so R&D outcomes move toward commercialization and market entry; expand technology security measures; and link policy, investment, and technology to national missions.

It outlines full-cycle support for technology-development companies—from startup creation to overseas expansion and patenting—while expanding regional research and testing infrastructure and continuing efforts to recruit and cultivate talent in strategic tech fields.

This image shows part of a tech salvage co-op on a tech raid (inspired by arcade cabinet raids) where members of a co-op have located unused, in-tact technology, and have negotiated with the current occupants (or owners if no one lives there) for the recovery of the devices. These will then be used to extend the meshnet or add redundancies, improve the capabilities of libraries, or provide to others in their community.
I picture this being a kind of exciting event for those involved – all the members of the co-op, along with friends and relatives who want to help, would participate. People would pack for spending all day or days exploring and working in an abandoned building, and a motley collection of vehicles, mostly electrical and pedal-powered, would navigate some fairly rough and overgrown roads to the site. The co-op would hopefully have a fairly well planned system, with different roles (based on training and capabilities) and necessary equipment, defined ahead of time.
At the site, they’d meet with any occupants or owners, announce themselves, and start confirming whatever earlier scouting parties might have found. From there it would be something of a combination of urbexing, unlicensed electrical work to make things safe, and a lot of physical labor hauling everything out and packing it for the ride home. There’d likely be a fairly steady stream of vehicles rolling from the site back to whatever settlement the co-op operates out of.
I imagine a lot of the people supporting a raid are volunteers, either along for fun or on a favor-for-favor basis. I imagine that the local cycling clubs, rock climbing clubs, volunteer medics, bakeries, and bike-repair co-ops who support the thing all have excellent technology back home.

As for likely raid sites, I see office parks as being kind of unnecessary in general, and especially so in this setting (one I’ve been playing with for a bit but haven’t published anything in yet), where society and infrastructure crumbling have made commuting unreasonable and some of the work unnecessary. Being outside the cities and not in immediate use, they would have been a low priority for restoration/re-occupancy, making them a good candidate for this kind of salvage operation decades on. — Representative image for context; not directly related to the specific event in this article. License: CC BY 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

To improve coordination, the government plans to reorganize cross-ministerial efforts by basing collaboration on four laws and 513 technologies to identify 19 common technology areas for priority action, with plans to broaden the scope over time.

Financially, the plan targets 8.6 trillion won in national strategic technology R&D funding for 2026, a 30% increase from the previous year, and 46.6 trillion won in policy financing. In February, the first Science and Technology Innovation Fund—worth 763.2 billion won—supported five strategic tech fields, including semiconductors, displays, and artificial intelligence.

The strategy calls for researchers to be supported through startup creation and early market access via public procurement, with enhanced R&D and overseas-expansion assistance for promising strategic-tech startups. It also designates “strategic technology confirmed companies” to receive R&D points and tailored support in finance, consulting, and investor relations. Regional hubs centered on Jeju’s green hydrogen and Jeollabuk-do’s secondary batteries will help diffuse research成果 into real-world applications.

The figure provides a schematic representation of the evolving contributions of strategic planning, strategic management, and open strategy to strategic openness over time adapted from Richard Whittington, 2019 — Representative image for context; not directly related to the specific event in this article. License: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

On talent and security, the plan emphasizes data-driven workforce policy, the development of interdisciplinary talent combining strategic tech and AI, and stronger efforts to attract foreign researchers. It also commits to upgrading the strategic tech system to reflect AI-driven transformation, changes in trade and security environments, and the foundations for future innovation; a new pre-check mechanism will be introduced after the abolition of ex-ante feasibility studies to speed up R&D. The government will engage in multilateral discussions on AI, semiconductors, and quantum computing to shape global norms and standards and will bolster international collaboration and defense-related tech investment, including AI, unmanned systems, and defense semiconductors. It also launches the National Strategic Technology Leading NEXT Project, a public-private platform intended to align technology, policy, and investment, and plans to shift from project-based funding to a results-oriented research framework by phasing out the PBS system.

The committee also reviewed the first-stage evaluation of the innovative small modular reactor (i-SMR) project, noting overall progress but recommending stronger project-level management to ensure follow-through and achievement of objectives.

For U.S. readers, Korea’s push signals a broad effort to fortify leadership in core technologies—semiconductors, AI, quantum computing, and green-energy tech—while expanding international partnerships that could affect global supply chains, standards setting, and defense-related collaboration. As a major producer of memory chips and advanced displays, Korea’s policy choices may influence investment, market dynamics, and opportunities for joint research with American companies and institutions.

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