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March 3 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT said Tuesday it has begun distributing graphics processing units to industry, academia and research institutions as part of a government push to expand domestic artificial intelligence capacity.

The ministry said it will supply about 4,000 GPUs starting this month from a pool of 10,000 units secured through last year’s supplementary budget. It selected recipients for the first batch and said the GPUs will be used to support 159 projects.

Under the initial allocation, 2,624 GPUs will go to universities and other academic institutions, 1,288 to industry and 312 to research institutes, the ministry said.

A previous call for proposals drew 514 applications. The ministry said the selected projects will be deployed immediately for AI research and development, including services and model development, based on expert evaluations of factors such as expected technological impact, societal impact and contribution to the domestic AI ecosystem.

The ministry said it will conduct periodic monitoring after allocation. If improper use is found, it said the GPUs could be reclaimed and reassigned to other users.

The ministry also said it plans an additional call for proposals later this month, including 4,000 GPUs for industry users such as small and midsize companies and startups and about 1,000 more for academia and research institutions.

In future rounds, the ministry said it will give greater consideration to applicants based outside the capital area and seek to prevent allocations from concentrating on specific companies or institutions.

Choi Dong-won, the ministry’s director general for AI infrastructure policy, said the GPU program is intended to serve as a catalyst for strengthening AI capabilities and expanding AI services, creating additional demand for infrastructure in a self-reinforcing cycle.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260303010000523

Feb. 18 (UPI) — White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Wednesday said that employees at the New York Federal Reserve should face punishment for publishing “the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve System.

The research published Feb. 12 concluded that most of President Donald Trump‘s tariffs are being paid by U.S. businesses and consumers. The authors said 90% of the costs are being passed on, though it acknowledged that the effect had dropped slightly as the year went on.

In an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, called it an “embarrassment” and said of the four authors, “the people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined.”

He argued that tariffs are responsible for a higher standard of living.

“Prices have gone down. Inflation is down over time,” Hassett said. “Import prices dropped a lot in the first half of the year and then leveled off, and [inflation-adjusted] wages were up $1,400 on average last year, which means that consumers were made better off by the tariffs. And consumers couldn’t have been made better off by the tariffs if this New York Fed analysis was correct.”

Harvard Business School, Yale’s Budget Lab, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the Congressional Budget Office have published similar findings, Politico reported.

“Our results imply that U.S. import prices for goods subject to the average tariff increased by 11% … more than those for goods not subject to tariffs,” the paper, written by Mary Amiti, Chris Flanagan, Sebastian Heise and David E. Weinstein, said. “U.S. firms and consumers continue to bear the bulk of the economic burden of the high tariffs imposed in 2025.”

Hassett was on Trump’s short list for Fed chair, but Kevin Warsh was chosen.