What happened
On 20 October, South Korea promulgated an amendment to its AI Basic Act (Act No. 22076) and a companion amendment to its Data Industry Act (Act No. 22074), Koreanics reported. Both take effect on 21 April 2027. The National Assembly passed them on 1 October, together with an amendment to the Special Act on Promotion of Research and Development Zones. The three are known collectively as the "Three AI and Data Innovation Acts".
Key changes
- Training data sharing. Heads of public agencies, and recipients of government contributions or subsidies designated by Presidential Decree, will have to link or provide all or part of the AI training data built in their projects through the government's integrated system, AI Hub. Data can be withheld on grounds to be set by decree, such as trade secrets, third-party rights or national security, after consulting the Ministry of Science and ICT. The ministry may charge for access.
- Integrated data platform. The Data Industry Act amendment gives a legal basis to a platform that maps where data sits across about 200 public and private platforms, without moving the data itself.
- Faster sandboxes. The R&D Zones amendment provides a framework that could cut regulatory sandbox reviews for new technologies, including AI, robotics and autonomous driving, from about 90–150 days to about 30–60 days, The Elec reported.
The scale of the data
According to National Assembly Budget Office figures cited by The Elec, 1.6328 trillion won was invested in the ministry's AI training-data programme between 2017 and July 2025.
Why it matters financially
The Elec reported that the laws could open new public-sector work for IT service companies such as Samsung SDS, LG CNS and KT, including data standardisation, cloud and AI platform projects. Companies doing government-funded work will need to assess which datasets they could be required to hand over. Shorter sandbox timelines could reduce the cost of testing robots and autonomous vehicles in Korea. Many details will be set in an enforcement decree that has not yet been published.