South Korea said on Nov. 26 it will establish large-scale autonomous driving demonstration cities capable of deploying more than 100 vehicles, as part of a broader push to commercialise fully autonomous vehicles by 2027.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced the plan at a joint meeting of economic ministers and the government’s Growth Strategy Task Force. The initiative is the first of 15 flagship projects supporting the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) transformation strategy, aimed at propelling South Korea into the ranks of the world’s top three autonomous vehicle powers.
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Under the plan, the government will expand real-world testing beyond the current 47 pilot operation districts, which are limited to select routes. Entire cities will be designated as testing zones to allow the collection of large-scale, diverse driving data. These projects will be operated under a “K-Autonomous Driving” cooperation model that brings together major companies and startups.
To accelerate development, authorities will also ease data utilisation rules and give greater flexibility to local governments to designate pilot operation zones. “The vision is to establish ‘Level 3 deregulation and Level 4 prior approval and post-management systems,’” the ministry said in its policy outline.
The government will jointly support autonomous vehicle research and development across ministries, including securing dedicated graphics processing units (GPUs) and building AI learning centres. The Ministry of Science and ICT will focus on fundamental end-to-end autonomous driving technologies, while the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy will lead commercialisation efforts.
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Separately, Seoul will also prepare legal and institutional frameworks for a driverless era by clarifying criminal, administrative and civil liability in autonomous vehicle accidents through a joint “Accident Responsibility Task Force.”
South Korea currently operates at Level 3 autonomous driving capability, which allows conditional automation under human supervision. The government now aims to advance to Level 4 high automation—where vehicles can operate without driver intervention in defined areas—by 2027.
Source: Business Korea
