South Korea Picks SKT, Kakao, and KT for 'AI for All': Free Unlimited AI for 52 Million Citizens

On Friday, August 28, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT announced the three consortia that will build the country’s most ambitious digital-infrastructure bet in a generation: free, unlimited AI services for its entire population of roughly 52 million people. Teams led by SK Telecom, Kakao, and KT were selected from six bidders for the “AI for Everyone” project, with beta testing set to begin in September and full services due by December 2026.

It is the first time a G20 nation has committed to giving every citizen access to premium generative AI at no cost — and the design of the program says as much about industrial policy as it does about digital welfare.

What the program actually delivers

The selected services go well beyond conventional chatbots. The ministry’s requirements mandate AI agents that can carry out tasks on users’ behalf: navigating public services, booking medical appointments, searching for apartments, handling reservations, applications, and payments, and tapping specialized offerings in healthcare, finance, education, and housing.

Each consortium is taking a distinct route to the same destination:

• SK Telecom is building what it calls an “action-oriented” AI that takes a request from planning through execution. Crucially for accessibility, it will be reachable not just through apps and the web but through ordinary phone calls and text messages — with AI-powered calls placing orders or inquiries to businesses and government offices that have no digital interface at all.
• Kakao will use KakaoTalk, the country’s dominant messaging platform, as the main gateway. Its service combines a general-purpose chatbot with agents that handle reservations, applications, and payments, plus a lighter voice AI service built with LG Uplus and a marketplace for specialized agents.
• KT is wiring its agent into partner platforms including Daum, Danawa, Musinsa, and Zigbang, alongside its own telecom and IPTV channels. The goal is a single conversation that moves from information search and comparison to a completed public or commercial task.

The government is not just setting rules — it is supplying the compute. The three consortia will receive a combined 512 Nvidia B200 GPUs this year, and nationwide service costs will be subsidized from government budgets starting in 2027. Users get unlimited access with no token limits under the government-supported plans. The Ministry of Science and ICT has not disclosed the program’s total cost, though the backdrop is clear: President Lee Jae Myung’s administration has set aside about 10 trillion won ($7.2 billion) for AI-related spending in 2026 — roughly triple the previous year’s allocation.

The domestic-model quota

The most policy-defining requirement is buried in the tender: developers must use domestic AI models meeting the ministry’s independent foundation-model standards for at least 50 percent of the system.

That quota transforms the project from a welfare program into an industrial one. South Korea has one of the world’s most AI-saturated consumer markets — a government survey earlier this year found about a quarter of South Koreans already pay for AI services, compared with roughly 2% of Americans in a PNC Bank survey — yet the paid subscriptions overwhelmingly flow to US-frontier models like ChatGPT and Gemini. Seoul estimates more than 20 million South Koreans already use free generative AI tools. By attaching guaranteed, state-funded demand to domestic models, the government is effectively underwriting a customer base for homegrown AI at a scale no startup could buy.

It is also a sovereignty play. The program is explicitly part of South Korea’s effort to reduce reliance on AI systems developed in the US and China, at a moment when both superpowers are racing to consolidate their AI stacks. For a mid-sized economy with world-class semiconductor and telecom industries but no frontier lab of its own, steering consumer demand toward domestic models is one of the few levers available.

Why September matters

The timeline is aggressive. The ministry plans to sign agreements with the three consortia in September, begin beta services the same month, and complete the national rollout by year’s end. That compressed schedule reflects the political weight behind the project — Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon has framed “AI for all” as the cornerstone of an “AI-basic society” where people can use AI services regardless of income, age, or digital literacy.

The beta will be the first real test of whether generative AI can function as basic digital infrastructure rather than a productivity perk. The services are expected to connect directly to government systems — welfare eligibility, tax guidance for individuals and small businesses, educational content recommendations for parents. Each of those use cases demands reliability and data-integration rigor well beyond what a standalone chatbot needs. Small businesses, for example, will be able to calculate taxes and check whether they qualify for government support; residents will book doctor appointments and search for apartments through the same interface.

Nobody has set an adoption target, and the ministry has been candid that success depends on whether the systems prove reliable enough for routine, practical tasks. But the raw ingredients — a 96%- smartphone-penetrated society, the world’s densest broadband, a population already habituated to super-apps, and now free compute plus guaranteed distribution through three of the country’s largest platforms — are all in place.

The bigger picture

Two decades ago, South Korea turned national broadband rollout into a global template that others copied. The “AI for Everyone” project is an explicit attempt to repeat that playbook: treat AI access as infrastructure, socialize the cost, and capture the industrial spillovers domestically.

Whether it works will depend on questions the program documents don’t answer. Can domestic models — carrying only half the load by quota — deliver an experience good enough that users don’t quietly retreat to ChatGPT? Will agent-grade integration with government systems survive contact with real bureaucratic complexity? And will a 512-GPU allocation, however strategic, be enough capacity to serve unlimited usage for a nation of 52 million once novelty becomes habit?

What is already clear is the direction. Other governments have subsidized devices, networks, and software; South Korea is the first to treat frontier-grade AI itself as a public utility. If the December rollout lands, expect the model — free access, domestic-model quotas, state-provided compute — to start appearing in policy papers well beyond Seoul.