DAEGU < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

(Daegu = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Kang-il – Daegu Metropolitan City and the Institute of Advanced Information Technology and Convergence at Kyungpook National University announced on the 12th that they are recruiting participants for the '2026 AI Service Development and Diffusion Support Project' to discover and nurture prospective entrepreneurs and startup enterprises in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector.

This project is pursued as part of the 'Dongdaegu Venture Valley AI TechPort' establishment project, which is supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and the National Information Society Agency (NIA).

The recruitment targets span from prospective entrepreneurs with innovative AI ideas to early and growth-stage startup enterprises pursuing market entry and business expansion. The project renders support for the development and commercialization of startup items and business models utilizing AI technologies, such as open-source-based small Large Language Models (sLLMs), Retri-Augmented Generation (RAG), and AI agents.

In particular, this public contest marks the first initiative signaling the operation of the 'Dongdaegu Venture Valley AI TechPort.' It lowers the initial barrier to entry by providing up to KRW 50 million in commercialization funds even to prospective entrepreneurs without business registration certificates.

Beginning with this project, Daegu City envisions leaping forward to position Dongdaegu Venture Valley as South Korea's representative AI startup hub.

The public contest is divided into three tracks depending on the support targets and growth stages. With a total budget of KRW 1.4 billion, approximately 11 tasks will be selected to receive the funds necessary for commercialization.

Applications can be submitted online via the dedicated email address (humancare@iact.or.kr) until 3:00 PM on the 29th. The final recipients of the support will be confirmed in July following document reviews and presentation uations conducted by an external expert uation committee.

An official from Daegu City stated, "We believe this project will serve as an excellent opportunity for outstanding local talents and enterprises to adopt the latest AI technologies early on and connect them to successful businesses."

leeki@yna.co.kr



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Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (June 12, 2026)

** This article was translated from Korean.