AI Talent War - Billions Invested in a Single Genius

A new battlefield created by artificial intelligence

In the 21st century's technological hegemony competition, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a pivotal force that fundamentally reshapes the landscape of industries and society, rather than being merely a technology in a single field. In this trend, 'talent' has become as important as capital, hardware, and infrastructure. The AI industry relies on a very small number of personnel capable of leading research and development due to its nature, and in reality, the decisive actors shaping the global AI industry are merely a few hundred top-tier technical talents. Consequently, the world's leading tech companies are pouring enormous resources into securing such talent, and the so-called 'AI talent war' is intensifying on a global front. Much like the competition between countries for space scientists or nuclear physicists during the Cold War, today, a single 'genius' in the AI field holds a value of hundreds of millions. This is not an exaggeration, as evidenced by the actual compensation levels offered by major tech companies and their strategies for dealing with talent. This text aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the realities of this talent acquisition warfare, including its strategies, significance, and long-term impacts.

Why AI Talent? - Scarcity and Strategic Value

The development speed and direction of AI technology, especially in the field of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), is structured in a way that is largely influenced by a small number of elite researchers. The number of personnel capable of performing high-level technical tasks such as developing artificial intelligence algorithms, designing large-scale language models, and constructing efficient learning frameworks is extremely limited worldwide. According to industry estimates, there are only a few hundred individuals who can make meaningful contributions in the AGI field. These individuals possess intellectual abilities that allow them to either expand existing theories or propose entirely new learning paradigms. This implies that the strategic value of each of them is beyond imagination. When a researcher devises a new model architecture or solves bottlenecks in training algorithms, it is frequently observed that the overall AI capability and competitiveness of the company dramatically increase. Consequently, companies are shifting their investment strategy to focus more on 'people' rather than GPUs or data centers, and this trend is growing stronger.

Buying Talent with Money - The Reality of Billion-Dollar Compensation Packages

One of the symbolic cases in the war for AI talent is Meta (formerly Facebook). Recently, Meta made an investment of about 19 trillion won in Scale AI, which provides data labeling and model training solutions. While it appears to be a technology acquisition investment, it is widely seen as a "talent investment" aimed at securing key personnel, including founder Alexander Wang. Mark Zuckerberg has been personally sending emails to AI talents with job offers, and the conditions being presented far exceed the usual range. According to reports, package offers range from 10 million dollars (approximately 13.5 billion won) to as much as 100 million dollars (about 1.37 trillion won), which include stock options, research autonomy, and high-performance computing resources. It is not just a high salary it is a structure that provides the entire "environment." This movement is not unique to Meta. Google DeepMind is also offering salary packages around 20 million dollars to retain top research talents, while OpenAI is providing stock allocations and large bonuses to prevent internal talent leaks. New AI startups such as Anthropic, xAI, and Inflection are also actively participating in this trend. The key is who can secure talent first and how long they can retain them.

Not just 'salary,' but a battle for the research environment

Simply offering a lot of money does not attract talented individuals. Recently, researchers have been prioritizing factors such as a more autonomous research environment, the philosophy of the company, and the public nature of research objectives. This is because, as the impact of AI technology on humans and society grows, the direction of technological development and its ethical justification have become increasingly important. Anthropic is a representative example. This company prioritizes AI safety and social responsibility as its core values, and through this philosophy, it has succeeded in attracting a large number of high-level talents from Google and OpenAI. It has been proven that an environment with secured research direction and autonomy provides long-term motivation. On the other hand, Meta has seen conflicts over direction among researchers regarding the internal launch and open strategy of the Llama series. Some researchers were skeptical of the open-source strategy, which actually led to the departure of key talent. This serves as a typical example of how much influence company culture and research operation methods have on talent acquisition.

Discrepancy between Investment and Profit - Is it Sustainable?

The intense competition for AI talent is fueled by excessive expectations regarding the overall AI industry. In 2024, global big tech companies have invested over 95 trillion won in the AI sector, with an additional investment of more than 75 trillion won anticipated for 2025. However, despite such massive investments, actual revenue remains limited. Most companies have yet to clearly demonstrate the monetization of their AI services, and there are questions about whether generative AI commercialization models are creating significant demand in the consumer market. As a result, some investors evaluate this as "investment for survival rather than profit." There is a strong belief that only companies possessing talent in the era of AGI will be able to survive. However, there are also doubts about whether such investments will be sustainable in the long term. Warnings about a bubble collapse, over-expectations regarding technology, and issues of public interest and safety continue to be significant risks in the AI industry.

The Changing Landscape of Talent Wars – Imbalances between Nations and Corporations

The AI talent war is not just a competition among companies but is also spreading to competition among nations. The United States hosts almost all key AI companies and talent, including Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic, which is exacerbating technological and economic imbalances. Europe is focusing on regulation-centered policies and is relatively lagging in technological development, while China is building its own ecosystem and accelerating its technological separation from the United States. These phenomena are also linked to the potential weaponization of AI technology in the future. In fact, policies such as immigration restrictions on AI researchers, export controls on AI chips, and restrictions on the transfer of AI software abroad are being discussed, indicating that the competition for talent is extending beyond mere market competition to encompass issues of international security and technological sovereignty.

Conclusion: The dominance of AI ultimately depends on humans

The key to determining the current and future of the AI industry ultimately lies in 'people.' While algorithms, data, and infrastructure are important, it is humans—especially those with top intellectual capabilities—who can compose, combine, and evolve these elements into new forms. Therefore, the reality of not sparing hundreds of millions of won for 'one genius' is not an exaggerated investment but rather a reflection of the essence of technological hegemony competition. However, for this talent war to become a truly sustainable and healthy competition, considerations must extend beyond mere rewards and efficiency to include elements such as research autonomy, public interest, and global technological balance. AI technology has the potential to change the lives of all humanity. Consequently, discussions about how to treat 'talents' at the center of this field, and what values to use as a basis for securing them, will go beyond simple recruitment strategies and become a crucial judgment that determines our collective future.