A few years ago, Junghwan Lim was doing what many brilliant mathematicians at the University of Oxford tend to do.
Staring down the long corridor of academia. Or possibly a very comfortable career in finance. That’s the usual path.
PhD in mathematics, publish papers, maybe teach, maybe end up designing exotic financial models that make hedge funds very happy.
But Lim had other ideas.
During his time in Oxford, he crossed paths with DeepMind, the artificial intelligence powerhouse that would later be acquired by Google. And something clicked.
Instead of staying in the rarefied world of abstract mathematics, Lim decided to do something slightly more chaotic: build technology with it.
We’re talking about anabelian geometry — a famously mind-bending branch of mathematics that mixes algebra, geometry and topology. It’s the kind of field where even other mathematicians nod and then quietly walk away.
But Lim believed that kind of thinking could power the next wave of AI.
So he packed up and went home to Seoul.
From theorem to tech startup
Back in South Korea, Lim took a fairly sensible detour. He worked as a data scientist at a gaming company, and later joined Samsung Research.
A safe path. Stable salary. Corporate prestige. The kind of career parents brag about.
But after a while, Lim realised something.
Comfort can be a dangerous place if you want to build something new. So he jumped into the startup world.
Today, the 34-year-old runs Motif Technologies, an AI startup that has suddenly found itself playing in one of the most unusual government competitions ever created.
Locals have nicknamed it “AI Squid Game.” Yes, like the Netflix show.
Just with GPUs instead of survival challenges.
The AI Squid Game
The competition is run by South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT. The goal is simple, at least on paper: build the country’s own sovereign AI models.
In reality, it’s a high stakes elimination tournament.
Startups and tech giants are competing across several rounds. Judges will eventually select two of the strongest homegrown AI systems to carry the national flag in the global AI race.
Motif is one of the contenders. Alongside another fast-rising startup called Upstage.
Their rivals are not small players either. The next round will see them facing industrial heavyweights like SK Group and LG Group.
Motif’s journey has already had a plot twist. The company was initially eliminated from the competition. Then it was brought back.
Officials decided its technology was simply too competitive to ignore.
Its AI model, Motif-2-12.7B-Reasoning, released in December, posted some of the strongest benchmark scores ever produced by a Korean system, according to US research group Artificial Analysis.
Lim believes his team has a shot.
“We believe that we have the best technology and R&D capabilities in the country,” he said.
Why Korea racing into AI
South Korea’s motivation here isn’t just pride. It’s survival.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming the backbone of modern economies. Countries that don’t build their own AI systems risk becoming permanent customers of those that do.
And right now, the global leaderboard is dominated by the United States and China.
Companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are spending billions building enormous AI infrastructure.
South Korea wants a seat at that table. The government is backing contestants with funding and serious computing power – including 768 of Nvidia’s B200 AI processors.
It also represents a shift in policy.
For decades, South Korea relied on giant conglomerates to drive innovation. Now the government is betting that scrappy startups might move faster.
After all, some of the biggest breakthroughs in AI have come from smaller teams.
Chinese startup DeepSeek recently shocked the industry by producing world-class AI models at dramatically lower cost.
As Soongsil University professor Chanjun Park put it: “When you look globally, the big AI leaders are actually startups, not the established tech companies.”
The other contender
The other startup turning heads in the competition is Upstage. Led by CEO Sung Kim, it’s already something of a celebrity in Korea’s tech scene.
Kim’s story sounds almost cinematic.
He grew up sharing a small room with his family of six, the son of a factory worker. His vocational high school was meant to lead straight to factory jobs.
Instead, Kim ended up building one of Korea’s earliest internet search engines.
Later he worked at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology before joining Korean tech giant Naver.
Eventually he quit to start Upstage with a team of elite engineers.
He’s not shy about the goal: “Failure doesn’t scare me,” Kim said. “But I’m here to win.”
The bigger game
In truth, the real contest isn’t just between Korean companies. It’s between nations.
South Korea wants to become the third major power in artificial intelligence, sitting somewhere between Silicon Valley and China’s massive AI ecosystem.
That’s an ambitious goal.
But the competition is already doing something important: energising the country’s tech sector and pushing companies to build faster, better systems.
Even startups that have been eliminated say they’re continuing their AI efforts.
Because in this particular game, the real prize isn’t simply winning a competition. It’s building the future.
After all, history has a habit of rewarding the bold.
And sometimes the biggest breakthroughs start with a mathematician staring at an impossible equation… and deciding it might just run the world.
This article is not financial advice. Always do your own research or speak with a licensed adviser before making investment decisions
Now read: Korea’s Power Play: The chip that could change how AI really scales
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