Seoul, Oct. 21 -- Nearly half of the artificial intelligence (AI) models released by South Korean developers this year were built on Chinese technology, predominantly Alibaba's Qwen, according to a study cited by The Korea Herald, raising questions about the country's efforts to develop its own AI models.

The report, released Friday by private think tank Rockbridge Network Korea and authored by Hanyang University business professor Choi Seong-jin, examined how Chinese AI is being used in Korea through developer activity, app usage and corporate surveys.

Of the 1,845 AI model derivatives published by Korea-linked accounts on global model-sharing platform Hugging Face between January and August, 49.3 per cent were based on Chinese foundat...