Government Rallies Ministries Behind Seven SEED Projects... Strengthens Cooperation

The government will pursue interministerial cooperation to advance seven SEED projects aimed at nurturing future growth engines, including small modular reactors (SMRs), nuclear fusion, quantum technology, aerospace, and advanced biotechnology.

On the morning of Oct. 28, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyunghoon and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Lee Hyeongil chaired a joint meeting of the Economic Ministers and the Ministers Responsible for Science and Technology at the Government Complex Seoul, where they discussed the “Direction for Advancing the Seven SEED Projects and Plans for Pan-Government Collaboration.”

Bae Kyunghoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, speaks at a meeting of science and technology-related ministers at the Government Complex Seoul in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on September 30, 2026. Photo by Jo Yongjun.

The government agreed to strengthen cooperation among the relevant ministries. To achieve the key targets for each of the seven SEED projects by 2030 and 2035, it will move away from a focus on individual projects and establish a framework that strategically links programs and investments across ministries around core missions.

To reflect private-sector demand, the government will establish a public-private Frontier Board and strengthen interministerial cooperation from technology development through demonstration and commercialization. It also plans to jointly address key prerequisites, including regulatory and permitting issues, to build a technology and industrial ecosystem.

The government plans to draw up detailed implementation plans by the end of this year and begin full-scale implementation next year.

Deputy Prime Minister Bae noted that South Korea had been included among the group of “AI-leading countries,” alongside the United States and China, and emphasized, “This is a valuable achievement made possible by the government’s strategic investment and the private sector’s tireless innovation and drive to take on challenges.” He added, “To ensure these achievements lead to an improved quality of life for the people, we must accelerate the national AI transformation and step up efforts to secure key future technologies through the seven SEED projects. With today’s first joint meeting as a starting point, we will bring together the capabilities of science and technology and economic policy to create new growth engines.”

The seven SEED projects are national initiatives to plant the “seeds” of seven advanced technologies in order to secure economic growth engines for 10 to 20 years from now. The government plans to foster these technologies from a long-term perspective and secure industries that will drive the next generation of growth.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.