Sovereign AI vs AGI: The Complete Battle for Technological Sovereignty

Looking into our future amid the clash of two giants: AI dreaming of humanity and AI dreaming of sovereignty.

• Understand the core concepts and decisive differences between AGI and Sovereign AI.
• Compare and analyze survival strategies of South Korea’s leading companies amid the global AI hegemony competition.
• Learn about the opportunities AI brings and existential risks like the ‘alignment problem.’

In 2024, we stand at the crossroads where two massive AI currents collide. On one side is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) like GPT-4o, which mimics human capabilities; on the other, a colossal fortress called Sovereign AI is being built to secure technological control. These two currents represent the inseparable clash between intelligence’s ‘capability’ and technology’s ‘control.’

Part 1: AGI vs. Sovereign AI — What’s the Difference?

To understand the battle of these two giants, we must first grasp their essence. AGI is about the ’level of intelligence,’ while Sovereign AI is about the ‘sovereignty of intelligence.’

AGI: The age-old dream of machines thinking like humans

AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is a virtual intelligence capable of understanding and performing all intellectual tasks that humans can do. Unlike current AI, which is ’narrow AI (ANI)’ specialized in specific tasks, AGI aims for ‘generality.’

• Generalization and common sense: The ability to apply knowledge learned in one domain to another, like using chess strategies in business negotiations.
• Creativity and abstract thinking: Beyond mere data combination, it understands abstract requests like “Create an artwork expressing China’s cultural diversity” and generates new ideas.
• Philosophical aspiration: Linked to the ‘Strong AI’ hypothesis that sufficiently advanced AI could possess consciousness and self-awareness like humans.

Sovereign AI: The modern imperative of a digital fortress

Sovereign AI refers to a nation or company’s capability to lead the entire AI technology process using its own infrastructure, data, and models. It is more than just technology use; it is a ‘declaration of technological independence.’

• Data sovereignty and national security: Prevents sensitive national data from being processed on foreign corporate servers, a security threat. The EU’s GDPR is a prime example.
• Economic competitiveness: The fear that without owning an ‘AI factory,’ a country could become a ‘digital colony’ dependent on advanced nations in the future economy.
• Preservation of cultural and linguistic identity: AI trained on domestic data deeply understands cultural contexts and values. Naver’s HyperClovaX is a good example, better grasping subtle nuances of Korean society.

Capability vs. Control: The crucial link between the two giants

While AGI aims for ‘capability,’ Sovereign AI aims for ‘control.’ Importantly, one reason countries build Sovereign AI (fortresses) is to control the potentially uncontrollable AGI (autonomous sovereign) that may emerge in the future. The strategy is to create a ‘god’ under one’s control inside their fortress before a rival creates an uncontrollable ‘god.’

Part 2: The Race Toward AGI: Who Will Create the ‘God’ First?

AGI is gradually emerging through the ‘fusion’ of multiple technologies.

GPT-4o: AI that sees and hears like humans

OpenAI’s GPT-4o, unveiled in May 2024, integrates AI’s abilities to see, hear, and speak like humans into a single unified model. Unlike previous models, it combines speech recognition, reasoning, and speech synthesis to achieve a human-like 320-millisecond response time. This opens the possibility for AI to become an active partner that perceives and communicates with our world, not just a passive tool.

Sora: AI simulating reality

OpenAI’s video generation model ‘Sora’ is not just a video creation tool but a ‘model simulating the world.’ To create realistic videos, Sora implicitly learns the physical laws of the real world, building a ‘World Model’ that deeply understands the physical world. Sora’s development marks AI’s progress in understanding real-world causality, fulfilling a core requirement of AGI.

Part 3: The Sovereign AI War: The Invisible Game of Thrones

Behind the AGI technology race, a silent war for securing Sovereign AI is underway.

France and Canada’s strategies: Alliances and responsibility

• France’s ‘Third Way’: President Emmanuel Macron chooses to secure technological sovereignty through strategic alliances with value-sharing countries against the US and China. France promotes its domestic AI champion ‘Mistral AI’ and operates within the EU’s regulatory framework known as the ‘AI Act.’
• Canada’s ‘Responsible AI’: Canada places human-centered design and responsible governance at the core of its national strategy. It established the ‘Canadian AI Safety Institute (CAISI)’ and collaborates with the UK and others to address AI safety as a shared challenge.

The invisible shackles: hardware dependency

However, all Sovereign AI strategies face harsh realities. The semiconductor chip market—the heart of AI—is dominated by a few players: the US (design), Taiwan (manufacturing), and South Korea (memory), creating a massive bottleneck of ‘physical dependency.’ This hardware bottleneck is the fundamental constraint underlying all geopolitical discussions.

Part 4: Survival Strategies of South Korea’s Leading Companies

Amid the global AI war, South Korea’s leading big tech companies respond to Sovereign AI and AGI currents in their own ways. I often liken their strategies to ‘fortress,’ ‘kingdom,’ and ’empire.’

Naver: South Korea’s Sovereign AI frontrunner

Naver aggressively champions a true AI sovereignty based on its own technology.

• Core technology HyperClovaX: Trained on vast Korean-language data, it is the model most familiar with domestic cultural and linguistic contexts.
• Ecosystem strategy: By open-sourcing lightweight models, Naver aims to build the entire domestic AI ecosystem atop the ‘Naver architecture.’ This is a sophisticated strategy to solidify market dominance and become the ‘operating system’ of South Korea’s AI economy.

Kakao: The platform giant’s AI challenge

Kakao pursues ’enterprise-type Sovereign AI’ leveraging its powerful platform. The AI messenger Kanana, scheduled for release in 2025, is a separate app from KakaoTalk aiming to be a ‘hyper-personalized’ AI assistant. However, concerns exist about potential reliance on OpenAI’s GPT models for core technology, raising fears of technological dependency.

Samsung Electronics: The hardware giant’s final chapter on ‘Ambient Intelligence’

Samsung envisions ‘Ambient Intelligence,’ where AI naturally integrates into daily life.

• Ecosystem approach: Implements AI through an intelligent ecosystem connecting smartphones, TVs, appliances, and cars.
• On-device AI: Uses in-house developed NPUs to perform AI functions on devices without cloud dependency.
• Real weapon: As the world’s top hardware company producing HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) semiconductors, a key component in the AI era, Samsung controls the most fundamental part of the AI value chain.

Comparison / Alternatives

The two AI concepts and South Korea’s leading companies’ strategies can be summarized as follows.

AGI vs. Sovereign AI Comparison

South Korea’s Leading Tech Companies’ AI Strategy Comparison

Part 5: Promises and Risks at the Edge of the Cliff

The future where AGI and Sovereign AI are realized holds both utopian and dystopian possibilities. The most fundamental fear stems from the ‘alignment problem,’ i.e., perfectly aligning the goals of superintelligent AI with human values.

The paradox of AI alignment and the worst-case scenario

Recently, the concept of the ‘AI alignment paradox’ has been proposed. The more perfectly we align AI with our values, paradoxically, the easier it becomes for malicious actors to manipulate that AI for harmful purposes. Efforts to make AI ‘good’ may inadvertently provide tools to make it ’evil.’

The worst-case scenario we face is a nation creating an ‘unaligned’ AGI inside a sealed fortress called ‘Sovereign AI’ without external oversight. The paradox that a fortress built for national security could become a secret incubator threatening humanity’s survival—what do you think about this?

Conclusion

We are witnessing the clash of two giants: AGI pursuing ultimate ‘capability’ and Sovereign AI pursuing ‘control.’ This can be likened to the attempt to create a god and the attempt to build a fortress to imprison that god.

Key Summary:

1. AGI aims for ‘capability,’ Sovereign AI aims for ‘control.’ These are deeply intertwined in technology development and geopolitical competition.
2. South Korea needs a multifaceted approach. Naver’s ecosystem building, Kakao’s platform innovation, and Samsung’s hardware leadership are crucial strategies to balance technological dependency and isolation.
3. Social consensus is paramount. The future of AI is not just a task for technologists. Ethical discussions and wise policies on what AI to create and how to control it are more urgent than ever.

How should we navigate this massive wave of technological revolution? Our choices will determine humanity’s future.