A recent study revealed that South Korea’s research workforce in artificial intelligence (AI) significantly lags behind leading nations. According to the Korea Institute of Science & Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), as of the end of last year, South Korea had about 21,000 AI researchers and published around 14,000 AI-related papers over the past six years. These figures place South Korea ninth globally in the number of researchers and 12th in the number of publications. The top domestic institutions in AI research output were Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University.
Globally, there were approximately 1.28 million AI researchers and 730,000 AI-related papers published in the last six years. China led with 411,000 AI researchers and 220,000 papers, followed by India with 195,000 researchers and 117,000 papers, and the United States with 120,000 researchers and 88,000 papers.
In emerging fields such as few-shot learning, computer vision, and deepfake technology, the U.S. accounted for 31.8% of the top 500 researchers by publication count, with China following at 24.2%. South Korea ranked 16th, with only five researchers among the top 500 worldwide.
