South Korea faces China’s accelerating AI drive

China will begin implementing its 15th Five-Year Plan for 2026 to 2030 this year. The plan is expected to receive final approval at the annual “two sessions” in March, referring to the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and Beijing has already begun building momentum.

The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, has published a steady stream of articles highlighting remarks by Chinese President Xi Jinping and interviews with domestic and international scholars on the plan. Senior Chinese leaders have also used economic, diplomatic, and cultural events to repeatedly stress their expectations and commitments tied to the initiative. In China, five-year plans are widely seen as both a blueprint for state governance and a key reference for assessing the country’s medium- to long-term development trajectory.

A draft of the 15th Five-Year Plan was first unveiled in October last year at the fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The most closely watched themes were “high-quality development,” signaling a shift from quantitative to qualitative growth, and scientific and technological self-reliance. These priorities were highlighted at the very start of the draft report.

China has placed strong emphasis on artificial intelligence as a central engine for high-quality development. AI was already designated as the top priority among seven key science and technology fields in the 14th Five-Year Plan for 2021 to 2025, marking the first time the technology appeared among the plan’s major objectives. At the time, however, global attention to China’s AI and robotics industries was limited.

Still, the initiative drew significant focus in the government work report presented at the two sessions. Then-Premier Li Keqiang, who personally unveiled the measures, pledged to pursue the strategy “with the resolve of sharpening a single sword for 10 years.” His determination proved more than rhetorical. Despite the China-U.S. trade war under the first Donald Trump administration and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, China achieved its goal of increasing research and development spending by an average of more than 7 percent annually.

The results are evident. The number of AI companies in China has surpassed 6,000, while more than 140 firms are producing complete humanoid robot systems. Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which captured global attention early last year with a low-cost, high-performance AI model, did not appear overnight.

South Korea also launched its “Korean New Deal” in 2020 to enhance capabilities in big data, AI, and fifth-generation mobile communications. From the beginning, however, the initiative focused more on job creation than technological innovation. Shifts in administration further challenged efforts to sustain policy momentum.

In the Global Digital Competitiveness Ranking released last year by the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland, China ranked 12th, surpassing South Korea, which placed 15th, for the first time. In the category of “scientific concentration,” which includes AI-related patents and the use of robots in education and research, China ranked first worldwide.

China is now moving beyond research and development toward the commercialization of AI and robotics. While the 14th Five-Year Plan emphasized “technological breakthroughs,” the 15th plan increasingly highlights terms such as “industrial application” and “process standardization.” The goal is to deploy AI across manufacturing, biotechnology, logistics, and other industries to accelerate innovation and secure global market dominance.

Against this backdrop, South Korea, where large-scale AI investment came relatively late and results remain limited, faces growing pressure. The country is economically and industrially intertwined with China and geographically close. Without establishing true AI competitiveness now, the impact of a second or third “DeepSeek moment” could be far more severe for South Korea than for other nations.