The Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements is currently conducting an intriguing study. It analyzes how the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technology affects national spatial planning and what we must prepare for. According to the research data, the regional gap in AI technology adoption capacity is larger than in any other area — namely, the gap between the Seoul metropolitan area and the rest of the country. The AI revolution is establishing itself as a core driver that determines the fate of industries and nations, going beyond daily life. While the world cheers at the astonishing news of technological advancement pouring in day after day, there is a critical blind spot we must address behind this dazzling stage: the issue of "space," or the new form of regional imbalance that the AI technology ecosystem will bring about.
Advanced technology is often expected to break down the constraints of time and space, but paradoxically, AI in reality is thoroughly place-dependent. Building and utilizing the AI industry requires hyperscale data centers to process massive amounts of data, enormous power grids to support them, and above all, top-tier innovative talent to design all of this and integrate it into business. The problem is that these core resources and infrastructure are being sucked into the Seoul metropolitan area like a black hole. Ultimately, the gap between the metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas in terms of "adoption capacity" — the core capability to embrace and utilize advanced technology — appears to have already widened to a level that is difficult to recover from.
This is a fatal problem directly tied to regional survival, going beyond mere "digital alienation." If past regional gaps stemmed from differences in physical infrastructure such as road networks, ports, and industrial complexes, the future gap will be determined by the size of AI infrastructure and knowledge capital. If traditional industries and small and medium-sized enterprises in non-metropolitan areas lose the opportunity to achieve disruptive innovation by integrating AI, quality jobs in those regions will disappear even more rapidly. Young people who lose their jobs will have no choice but to pack up and leave for the metropolitan area, where the AI ecosystem is concentrated. Technological progress could, on the contrary, deplete regional innovation capacity and serve as a catalyst that accelerates "local extinction," the most painful crisis facing Korea.
Therefore, the national balanced development strategy for the coming AI era needs to be fully redesigned based on an understanding of space. Past approaches such as relocating public institutions to provincial areas or providing short-term subsidies are still necessary, but such policies alone cannot overcome the massive wave of technology. Strong policy intervention is desperately needed to build specialized AI innovation clusters in regional hub cities and to induce the dispersion of data centers concentrated in the metropolitan area to provincial regions. In addition, an ecosystem must be urgently established that uses regional universities as knowledge hubs to cultivate and retain AI practitioners closely aligned with on-site industries.
The advancement of technology is an unstoppable current of the times, but the map of benefits left by that technology can change depending on how we design it. Whether AI becomes a dark shadow that hastens the clock of local extinction, or a new light that revives stagnant regional economies through innovation, depends entirely on our public administration and fierce policy determination right now. It is time to gather national wisdom so that the warmth of advanced technology can evenly heat every city in Korea.
