Although North Korea is specializing in developing artificial intelligence (AI), it is thought that the variety of research papers that might be used to measure its performance is among the many lowest on the earth. The variety of AI papers published between 2017 and 2023 was 161, rating 145th on the earth.
On the twenty first (local time), 38 North introduced the status of paper publications and the resulting global cooperative relationships through a report titled “North Korea’s International AI Research Network.” 38 North is a North Korea evaluation media outlet operated by the Stimson Center, an American research institute.
In accordance with this, North Korea is thought to have developed an AI Go program called ‘Eunbyeol’ in 1998, but on account of its isolated and secretive system and international sanctions, little is thought about it.
Nonetheless, based on papers published in scientific journals and propaganda through state-run media, it appears that evidently AI and ML technologies are being actively developed and promoted in various sectors to maintain up with global developments.
Specifically, in April 2019, Article 26 of the Structure was revised so as to add “informatization” to the core lines of economic efforts, arguing for achieving a self-reliant economy. In the identical 12 months, state-run media reported that “the expansion of the digital economy is being driven by the event of AI, and within the AI era, data is more priceless than gold and crude oil.”
North Korea established the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute under the Information Industry Guidance Bureau in 2013, and incorporated it into the Ministry of Information Industry in 2021, granting it initiative at the extent of a national ministry.
As well as, in 2014, Kim Il Sung University established the Advanced Technology Development Center (Advanced Technology Research and Development Center) specializing in technologies resembling speech and text recognition, simultaneous interpretation, and large data evaluation. Since 2018, many universities have followed suit and introduced AI-focused programs.
North Korean corporations have also recently been promoting industrial products that use AI and ML technologies. In 2020, the Mangyongdae Information Technology Company released a cell phone that it claimed had “successfully integrated fingerprint, voice, face, and text recognition technologies based on deep neural networks (DNN).”
As well as, Yalu River Technology Development Company applied DNN to security surveillance systems and intelligent IP cameras. The corporate claimed that it’s actively pursuing collaborative research and development with famous IT corporations in greater than 20 countries.
Nonetheless, because AI is a dual-use technology with potential military applications in North Korea, it’s having difficulty with international cooperation. Subsequently, the evaluation is that it’s sure to lag behind in research and development where international exchange is essential.
This study focused on open source published data, including scientific journal articles and conference papers on AI involving North Korean researchers.
Using a keyword list of roughly 800 terms, we collected data on North Korean research papers from 2017 to 2023 that were included in international sanctions.
Consequently, North Korea’s research publications amounted to only 161. Throughout the same period, 160 countries around the globe published greater than 2.5 million AI papers.
North Korea ranked 145th, just like African countries resembling Togo and Swaziland.
After all, it’s difficult to measure technical capabilities by the variety of papers. Papers published in North Korean domestic journals resembling the Kim Il-sung University Journal or Information Science were also excluded. Additionally it is possible that papers were published using keywords aside from AI or ML.
Nonetheless, the evaluation suggests that the proven fact that there are considerably fewer papers from North Korea indicates that it lags behind other countries in academic research.
Particularly, there are only 45 institutions or organizations which have published research, and the variety of foreign institutions which have conducted joint research with them is restricted to 12 countries. This includes the ‘Study on Features for Improving Chinese OCR Performance through Machine Learning’ jointly published by the South and the North in 2019. This paper was a collaboration between researchers at George Mason University of Korea in Incheon and Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.
China was again the most important partner. Others included were Japan, Germany, Lithuania, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Egypt, Uganda, Canada, and the US.
In North Korea, Kim Il-sung University, the State Academy of Sciences, and Kim Chaek University of Technology were major international cooperation partners.
Nonetheless, the research subject is thought to be wide-ranging. AI technology has been applied to the fields of textiles, robotics, communications, aerospace, and cybersecurity.
As well as, AI application areas ranged from object detection to visual tracking, text-to-speech synthesis, distant sensing, and cryptocurrency. Research topics also expanded to environmental, education, medical, and geological research, showing that North Korea has a big selection of interest and investment in AI research.
“North Korea lags behind major countries in global advances in AI,” 38 North concluded, “but despite sanctions, North Korea maintains academic partnerships for potential AI research, often relying heavily on China.”
He continued, “Particularly, it is vital to watch cooperation between Chinese universities and institutions related to North Korea,” and “The necessity to strengthen international cooperation inspections to make sure compliance with sanctions is emphasized.”
Reporter Im Dae-jun ydj@aitimes.com
