Amid the full-scale international competitors for synthetic intelligence (AI) utilization, Korea has emerged because the nation adopting AI on the quickest tempo worldwide.
Microsoft (MS) introduced on Jan. 12 that Korea’s AI adoption fee within the second half of final yr was 30.7%, rating 18th amongst all nations, which represents a 7-place rise from the primary half (25%). The adoption fee by nation refers back to the proportion of working-age inhabitants that used generative AI at the very least as soon as throughout the related interval.
MS made this announcement based mostly on the “AI Diffusion Report” recurrently surveyed and revealed by its suppose tank, the AI Financial system Institute. Based on the report, whereas Korea’s AI utilization fee was 25.9% till the primary half of final yr, it grew by roughly 5 proportion factors over six months. The cumulative development fee since October 2024 exceeded 80%, considerably outpacing the worldwide common (35%) and america (25%).
The report analyzed that this resulted from the convergence of three driving forces: nationwide insurance policies, mannequin efficiency enhancement, and common cultural phenomena. The evaluation signifies that because the processing capabilities of frontier fashions like ChatGPT improved dramatically, their utilization in sensible environments comparable to work and training inside Korea expanded.
Moreover, the report analyzed that common cultural phenomena comparable to “Ghibli-style” picture era triggered an inflow of recent customers, and these preliminary experiences confirmed a sample of settling into long-term utilization past short-term tendencies. MS defined that this consumer-level curiosity turned the core driving drive behind Korea’s elevated AI utilization when mixed with authorities insurance policies and technological development.
Amongst nations excluding Korea, people who made early investments in digital infrastructure continued to steer in adoption charges: United Arab Emirates (64.0%), Singapore (60.9%), Norway (46.4%), and Spain (41.8%). In the meantime, whereas america maintained the world’s highest degree when it comes to absolute utilization quantity, it confirmed a decrease utilization ratio relative to inhabitants in comparison with small-scale digital financial system nations with concentrated infrastructure, recording twenty fourth place in international rankings. The report additionally analyzed that the open-source AI platform “DeepSeek” is exhibiting a sample of reshaping the worldwide panorama by reducing financial and technological entry obstacles. MS steered that “these modifications point out that accessibility is on the core of AI diffusion,” and “making certain that innovation spreads in a route that narrows gaps shall be a key problem for the worldwide ecosystem.”
