During a national briefing on South Korea’s “2026 Economic Growth Strategy” held on January 9, Shift Up CEO and Stellar Blade director Hyung-tae Kim shared his views on AI, positioning it as an essential tool for going up against large competitors like China on a global level (as reported by GameMeca). The briefing, overseen by South Korea’s president, was attended by major government officials, with Kim representing the private sector among other prominent business owners.
Commenting on the domestic game industry, Kim expressed a sense of crisis about China’s overwhelming advantage when it comes to manpower, and suggested that the use of AI technology will be indispensable to overcoming this gap (note that this is based on machine translation, so exact nuance should be taken with a grain of salt).
He explained that with about 80% of Shift Up’s revenue coming from the overseas market, Chinese games are a formidable rival. “We devote around 150 people to a single game, but China puts in between 1,000 to 2,000. We lack the capacity to compete, both in terms of quality and volume of content.”
According to Kim, the solution to this issue lies in adopting AI. He argues that widespread use of AI will not result in people losing their jobs, because competing with major industries like China and the US will require not only utilizing all available manpower, but also making everyone proficient in AI, so that “one person can perform the work of 100 people.”
Hwi-young Chae, South Korea’s Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, supported this stance, commenting, “Some large game companies already possess their own AI technologies, and they are also designing programs to grow together with small and medium-sized studios.” As Chae explains, the government will be working on financially supporting the shift to AI, with investments planned for 2026.
Related: Stellar Blade developer Shift Up launches large-scale recruitment for new game Project Spirits
