South Korea said Wednesday it plans to spend 1.1 trillion won ($974 million) by 2027 to speed up the development of Level 4 self-driving vehicles and boost related technologies.

At Level 4, one stage before full autonomy, the vehicle can drive itself under limited conditions and does not require human intervention.

Under the plan, South Korea will support 84 projects to develop vehicle convergence, information and communication and road traffic technologies, as well as self-driving services and the broader ecosystem of self-driving vehicles.

Major South Korean tech and auto companies have also been racing to develop more advanced self-driving vehicles in recent years.

Telecom operator LG Uplus Corp. partnered with Hanyang University's ACE Lab and local self-driving technology company Controlworks to demonstrate an autonomous vehicle that can park on its own using LG Uplus' high-speed 5G network last year.

South Korean auto giant Hyundai Motor Group has commercialized Level 2 self-driving technology and is currently planning to unveil Level 3 autonomous vehicles next year, in which the system can perform most of the driving but still requires human intervention. (Yonhap)