SEOUL, June 29 (Reuters) – South Korea announced three “mega projects” on Monday covering semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centres, with Samsung Electronics, SK Group and government ministries outlining investment plans.
Below is a summary of the investments and targets announced at the event and in corporate and government statements.
SAMSUNG
Samsung plans to invest 400 trillion won ($259.25 billion) in new semiconductor fabs in the southwestern city of Gwangju.
Gwangju is being considered as a site because of expected government support for electricity, water, workforce development and living conditions, the company said.
Samsung also plans to invest 56 trillion won to build advanced high bandwidth memory (HBM) fabs in Cheonan and Onyang.
Samsung said in a regulatory filing it is investing 2,450 trillion won domestically to strengthen future growth businesses between 2026 and 2040.
Of the total, 2,100 trillion won will go towards semiconductor clusters, including an ongoing construction project at Pyeongtaek, Samsung’s main base, and the Yongin industrial complex, the company said.
SK GROUP
SK Group, South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate, said it has long-term plans for projects to increase its production of semiconductors worth about 1,100 trillion won, and for AI data centre projects worth about 1,000 trillion won.
Chairman Chey Tae-won said SK expects to invest, on average, more than 100 trillion won a year in South Korea over the next 10 years.
Nvidia supplier SK Hynix plans to complete construction of the fourth fab at its Yongin semiconductor cluster by 2033, 12 years earlier than the previous 2045 target, Chey added.
In addition to investments in its existing chip clusters at Yongin and Cheongju, SK Hynix plans to invest 400 trillion won in a new chip production base in the country’s southwest, including fabs and production equipment, with execution staged according to market demand and board approvals.
SK Hynix said the southwestern cluster would be a new operation, sitting alongside its existing front-end memory production plants in Icheon, Cheongju and Yongin. Chey did not name a specific location.
AI DATA CENTRES
The government said SK, conglomerate GS Group and tech giant Naver will invest a total of around 550 trillion won to build a combined 8.4 GW of AI data centres in an initial phase, with construction targeted to begin by the first half of 2028.
The investments are expected to swell to more than 1,000 trillion won by around 2035, South Korea’s science minister said.
SK affiliate SK Telecom said in a regulatory filing it is considering funding the projects through strategic partners including global big tech companies and overseas capital, as well as other investment structures.
PHYSICAL AI AND ROBOTICS
The government said it aims for South Korea to become one of the world’s top three AI robot powers and the world’s top power in physical AI by 2030.
The country will aim to develop industry-specific AI robots and target commercialisation in 2028 for humanoids tailored to 10 major industries, and help establish data factories, support development of Korean physical AI foundation models, and train 10,000 AI robotics specialists over five years.
($1 = 1,542.9000 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Brenda Goh and Andrew Heavens)
Comments