Boston Consulting Group has rated South Korea's artificial intelligence maturity among the highest in the world.
BCG said on the 20th that it had published its "AI Maturity Matrix 2026" report, which analyzed AI maturity across more than 75 economies. In this year's report, Korea and Japan joined the top tier of "AI pioneers," alongside the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Canada. They are the only two economies to have entered the AI pioneer group since the first survey in 2024.
BCG said Korea stands out in developing its own AI models. The firm also pointed to large-scale public investment aimed at building computing infrastructure and an AI ecosystem. Korea ranked among the world's top five in notable AI model development in the 2026 AI Index published by Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered AI.
The report assessed each economy's AI maturity on two measures. The first is "AI exposure," or the potential impact of AI on major industries and jobs. The second is "AI readiness," or how prepared an economy is to capture the opportunities AI creates. Readiness was analyzed through the ASPIRE framework, which covers six areas: national ambition, skills, policy and regulation, investment, research and innovation, and ecosystem.
The survey found that nearly every economy made progress in at least one of the areas that make up AI readiness. Eight economies, including Korea and Japan, moved up a tier in the readiness assessment from 2024. BCG said that as drafting an AI strategy has become commonplace across most economies, the speed of execution has now emerged as the key factor separating countries in AI competitiveness.
"The economies that improved their AI readiness this year show that a government's ability to execute is the key element in turning AI strategy into real capability," said Joerg Hildebrandt, BCG's global leader for the public sector and a co-author of the report.
The report said AI's impact is currently concentrated in knowledge-based industries such as information and communications and financial services. It projected that the impact will spread to physical industries including manufacturing, logistics and agriculture as physical AI advances through humanoid robots and industrial automation. Japan and China in particular are focusing on strengthening physical AI capabilities, building on their strengths in manufacturing and industrial robotics, the report said.
"Korea's entry into the group of global AI leaders shows that the country has made meaningful progress in building AI capabilities and an ecosystem," said Hwang Hyung-jun, managing partner of BCG Korea. "The important task now for Korean companies is to translate that into real industrial competitiveness and business results."