South Korea’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Information and Communication announced on June 24 that it will invest 23.5 trillion won (20.846 billion U.S. dollars) in national R&D projects next year. Among them, 2.48 trillion won (US$2.2 billion) will be used for biotechnology and healthcare, future automobiles, and system-on-chip (SoC) industries.

The above-mentioned annual budget will be submitted to the Ministry of Finance and Economy of South Korea this month, and if approved, it will be submitted to the National Assembly in September. It is reported that South Korea invested 22.5 trillion won in national R&D projects last year, and the budget this time was a full 1 trillion won.

Next year, the South Korean government plans to invest 1721.6 billion won in the fields of biotechnology and medical care for the development of new drugs and medical equipment research and development, and artificial intelligence medical services. This figure is an increase of 5.6% over this year's investment.

The future R&D investment in the automotive industry is 393.6 billion won, which is expected to increase by 10.5%. The largest part of this investment will be used to respond to environmental regulations and commercialize autonomous driving based on communications and sensor research and development.

The SoC industry will receive 361.3 billion won of government investment, an increase of 26.9% year-on-year, and its uses include engineer training, compound semiconductor development, and AI chip development. The total R&D investment of these three industries is expected to increase by 9.1% year-on-year.

In addition, investment in the materials, parts and equipment industries is expected to increase by 6.3% to 2.24 trillion won. As for South Korea’s investment in the “2050 carbon neutral” target, it will increase by 20.9% to 1.89 trillion won.