Korea's quantum push: the budgets behind it and the five machines it has bought

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Quantum Zeitgeist has published a useful analysis of South Korea's investment in quantum computing. It is a feature rather than breaking news, but it pulls together a lot of figures that are hard to find in one place. The country's 2023 strategy targets at least 3 trillion won of public and private investment between 2023 and 2035, with 2.4 trillion won of that coming from the government

The yearly budgets show how fast things have grown. Dedicated state quantum budgets rose from 10.6 billion won in 2019 to 128.5 billion won in 2024 and 198 billion won in 2025, spread across 24 programmes. A flagship project worth 645.4 billion won runs from 2025 to 2032. Its targets include 1,000 physical neutral atom qubits and three superconducting logical qubits

Not every goal has been met on time. A home grown 50 qubit system, first promised for 2022 to 2024, has slipped to 2027. In August 2026 a new target was set for a 100 qubit self correcting processor by 2029. Three regional quantum clusters were also named on 1 September 2026

The most concrete part of the piece is the list of machines bought or contracted. They are an IBM System One with 127 qubits at Yonsei, an IQM Spark with 5 qubits at Chungbuk National University, an IonQ Tempo with 100 qubits at KISTI, an SDT Kreo SC-20 with 20 qubits for QAI, and an IonQ Superion 256 through SDT for an unnamed customer. None of them came with a disclosed price. The national standards institute KRISS has also shown a 20 qubit machine of its own

The overall picture is a country that is serious about quantum and willing to buy foreign hardware while building its own. The article's author makes the fair point that the voted budgets and the installed machines are the firmest facts, while long term targets are less certain. That is a sensible way to read any national technology plan

Is buying machines from IBM and IonQ the right way to build a domestic quantum industry? And which country's approach do you think will pay off best over the next decade?

Korean Investment In Quantum Computing: Budgets And Machinesquantumzeitgeist.com