City to pilot AI universal welfare model at 10 youth centers through December, setting new standard for public services
Daejeon announced Friday it is pursuing what it calls an "AI transformation (AX) for youth spaces" — the first initiative of its kind in South Korea — giving any young resident free, on-demand access to AI tools rather than issuing individual usage vouchers.
Under the city's AI transformation plan, a pilot program is running from July through December at 10 youth centers across the city. The initiative introduces a universal welfare model for AI access, aimed at strengthening young people's ability to use AI and narrowing the gap in access driven by economic circumstances.
The city frames the move as a natural evolution of public services: just as public Wi-Fi once became a symbol of innovation in government offerings, AI access is now poised to set the new standard.
At participating youth centers, young people can connect through the centers' Wi-Fi networks and use high-performance generative AI services — including ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude — as well as an AI assistant, all free of charge. Once a user reaches the usage limit, the system automatically switches to a lighter AI model so they can continue without interruption.
Rather than paying for individual subscriptions, the city adopted an institutional API pay-as-you-go model to keep costs down. The average monthly cost per user works out to about 1,666 won ($1.20), roughly a 94 percent saving compared with an individual paying $20 a month for a commercial subscription.
Daejeon plans to operate the program as a living lab, analyzing anonymized usage data to identify policy needs and feed findings back into service improvements. All data collected in the process will be pseudonymized or anonymized before being used solely for statistical and policy research purposes.
After the pilot wraps up in December, the city will conduct a satisfaction survey and use the results to draw up an expansion plan for next year.
"We are in an era where whether or not you can use AI determines where young people start in life," said Oh Su-geun, director of Daejeon's education policy strategy bureau. "Daejeon will build the foundation so that any young person in the city can learn and use AI without worrying about the cost."
kwonhl@heraldcorp.com
