South Korea rolled out sweeping chip and AI mega-projects on Monday, as President Lee Jae Myung pledged to cement overwhelming business management with investments value greater than $576 billion over a number of years.
The announcement marks Lee’s boldest push but to align South Korea’s AI and chip ambitions with his pledge to slim regional disparities and revive economies past the Seoul metropolitan space.
Lee was joined by the leaders of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world’s two largest reminiscence chipmakers, for the televised announcement.
“We must secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country,” the president mentioned. “Semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centres are the triple axis for our great leap forward.”
Samsung and SK Hynix will invest 800 trillion gained ($517.87 billion) with suppliers to construct two new chip fabrication websites every in South Korea’s southwest area, he mentioned.
Lee mentioned the nation’s southwestern metropolis of Gwangju and South Jeolla province can even invest 5-20 trillion gained in the tasks, with a additional 81 trillion gained anticipated for a chip packaging cluster in the Chungcheong space close to Seoul.
Lee mentioned the southwest will host main chip production clusters, drawing on plentiful, underused energy.
“To meet the rapidly increasing demand for semiconductors, we need to quickly complete the production hubs that are currently under construction,” he mentioned.
“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.”
High-bandwidth reminiscence chips produced by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have turn out to be pivotal in the worldwide race to construct superior AI programs. Both corporations already function main semiconductor services in and across the Seoul metropolitan space.
Industry consultants say diversifying chip funding past Seoul may ease infrastructure bottlenecks, however warn that constructing cutting-edge fabs requires huge electrical energy and water, superior logistics, deep provider networks and extremely expert labour – components that won’t scale shortly sufficient in a brand new area to meet surging AI demand.