Google DeepMind opening first AI campus in South Korea

2 min readUpdated April 27, 2026

Google $GOOGL will open an AI campus in Seoul, South Korea — the first facility of its kind for the company anywhere in the world — after Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis met with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung earlier this week.

Housed within Google's existing Seoul offices, the campus is set to be up and running before the end of 2026. At the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon joined Hassabis to formalize an agreement between South Korea's science ministry and Google, with the MOU addressing collaborative AI research, workforce development in AI, and principles of responsible use.

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South Korean universities, research institutions, startups, and industrial firms are all envisioned as partners for the Google engineers based at the campus. Google said it will explore collaborations with Seoul National University, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and three AI Bio Innovation Hubs established by the ministry. Research areas will include life sciences, energy, weather, and climate, with Google making available tools such as AlphaFold, AlphaGenome, AlphaEvolve, and its AI co-scientist system. AlphaFold is already used by more than 85,000 researchers in South Korea, Google said.

Samsung, SK Hynix, Hyundai's Boston Dynamics, and LG were all named by Hassabis as companies he wants to work more closely with, and he called South Korea a "great industrial base" given its strength across the AI supply chain, from semiconductors to robotics. Google also said it will explore internship opportunities for Korean students and collaborate with South Korea's AI Safety Institute on research and best practices.

The location where the MOU was signed adds a layer of historical resonance to the announcement: the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul was where, in March 2016, DeepMind's AlphaGo faced Go grandmaster Lee Se-dol in a landmark five-game contest. AlphaGo's victory by four games to one is broadly seen as a turning point that accelerated the current era of AI investment. To commemorate a decade since the AlphaGo contest, Hassabis gave President Lee a Go board bearing the signatures of both Hassabis and Lee Se-dol.

Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT has positioned the campus within the country's broader "K-Moonshot" agenda, an initiative that harnesses AI alongside scientific capability to tackle large-scale national problems. Ranking among the world's three leading AI nations — a group South Korea places itself in alongside the U.S. and China — is an explicitly stated ambition of the government.

Google is building its first AI campus in South Korea

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