A profile of South Korea Deputy PM Bae Kyung-hoon, an AI evangelist and a former AI researcher leading lavishly funded programs to make AI ubiquitous nationwide (Daniel Tudor/Financial Times)

South Korea is betting heavily on AI, with Deputy Prime Minister Bae Kyung-hoon—an AI researcher and evangelist—driving programs designed to make the technology ubiquitous nationwide. For CIOs and technology leaders, this signals faster normalization of AI across government and industry, likely raising expectations for adoption, talent, infrastructure, and governance across IT organizations. It also highlights the need to balance rapid AI deployment with strong controls for safety, compliance, and operational risk.