South Korea has unveiled more than US$576 billion (A$834.8 billion) worth of investments in artificial intelligence and semiconductor manufacturing, with President Lee Jae Myung outlining an ambitious strategy to strengthen the nation's leadership in advanced chips while expanding industrial development beyond the Seoul metropolitan area.
The announcement, made on Monday, represents Lee's most significant policy initiative to date aimed at combining South Korea's AI and semiconductor ambitions with his pledge to reduce regional economic disparities and revitalise areas outside the capital.
Lee was joined by the heads of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world's two largest memory chip manufacturers, during the televised announcement.
“We must secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country,” the president said. “Semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centres are the triple axis for our great leap forward.”
Under the plan, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, together with their suppliers, will invest 800 trillion won (US$517.87 billion) to construct two new semiconductor fabrication plants each in South Korea's southwestern region.
In addition, Lee said Gwangju and South Jeolla province will contribute between 5 trillion won and 20 trillion won towards the projects, while a further 81 trillion won will be invested in developing a semiconductor packaging cluster in the Chungcheong region near Seoul.
The president said the country's southwest would become a major semiconductor manufacturing hub, taking advantage of significant unused electricity capacity.
“To meet the rapidly increasing demand for semiconductors, we need to quickly complete the production hubs that are currently under construction,” he said.
“At the same time, we must secure overwhelming production capacity in advance through large-scale new investments, including in the southwestern region. Existing sites centred around Yongin and Pyeongtaek have already reached their limits.”
The expansion comes as demand for high-bandwidth memory chips continues to surge, driven by the rapid development of artificial intelligence systems.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are among the world's leading suppliers of these advanced memory chips and already operate major semiconductor facilities across the Seoul metropolitan region.
