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North Korea is moving its top artificial intelligence (AI) specialists from its main spy agency to the foreign ministry. The November 2026 reshuffle has stirred deep resentment inside the Reconnaissance Information General Bureau, which spent years grooming the young experts.
Central authorities began ordering the transfers in late October, a Daily NK source in Pyongyang said Monday. The specialists are taking new posts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Enemy Guidance Bureau, also known as Bureau 10.
The Reconnaissance Information General Bureau is North Korea’s main intelligence agency and commands its state hacking units. Those units are behind many of the regime’s cyberattacks and cryptocurrency thefts. The bureau replaced the Reconnaissance General Bureau in 2025, when Pyongyang merged satellite, cyber, signals and human intelligence under one agency.
Bureau 10 handles South Korea affairs for the foreign ministry under Kim Jong Un’s “two hostile states” policy. It absorbed key functions of the United Front Department, the party body that long managed relations with Seoul. Jang Kum Chol, a first vice minister of foreign affairs, leads Bureau 10 and has mocked Seoul in hostile statements this year.
The transferred specialists are in their 20s and 30s and joined the spy agency straight out of university. Bureau officials had singled them out as the agency’s finest talent and watched them closely as they developed. Many were growing into some of the country’s best technical minds, according to the source.
The foreign ministry has framed the moves as promotions and pay grade upgrades for the young experts. In practice, it is scooping up the most promising AI specialists like a hawk snatching chicks. Spy agency officials cannot object openly because the order came from the central leadership.
Resentment is running high behind closed doors, however, and complaints are spreading through the bureau. “Plenty of talented people are graduating from university right now,” officials have grumbled, the source said. “Is it fair to take only the capable ones we developed for over five years who already deliver results?”
Why AI specialists are racing to join the foreign ministry
Some of the specialists themselves welcomed the move and competed fiercely behind the scenes for a spot. Many hope a foreign ministry post will quickly bring a once-in-a-lifetime chance to work abroad.
Spy agency staff can also win overseas assignments, but many young specialists see the foreign ministry as a better path. To land on the recommendation list for transfer, some reportedly inflated their performance records. Others quietly enlisted powerful relatives serving as senior officials in the central government.
Already stung by the loss of its talent, the bureau grew angrier after catching wind of these maneuvers. Officials there now openly worry that the exodus could hand the foreign ministry control of state cyber operations. They also fear losing a large share of that lucrative work to their rivals, the source said.
The turf war comes as North Korean hackers face intense global scrutiny over cryptocurrency theft. The FBI blamed Pyongyang for the record $6.3 billion Binance hack in late October. Kim had earlier ordered the spy agency to create Research Center 227, a unit devoted to AI-powered hacking. That push forms part of North Korea’s growing cyber arsenal and its widening reach into foreign systems.
Even so, the spy agency is closing ranks instead of backing down. Officials are reminding one another that the leadership has long praised the bureau for top results. They have rallied around a plan to train even more new talent and cement the bureau’s past achievements. Their goal is to make sure the agency’s standing does not fade in the eyes of the central leadership.
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About This Translation
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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