South Korea unveils three AI and chip mega projects for semiconductors and physical AI as well as AI data centres, with investment strategies disclosed by Samsung Electronics and SK Group along with government ministries.
Let us have a look at the investments and targets laid out at the event and in company and government statements.
SAMSUNG
Samsung will invest 400 trillion won or $259.25 billion when it comes to new semiconductor production lines in the southwestern city of Gwangju.
Gwangju is being looked at as a location due to anticipated government support in terms of electricity, workforce development, water, and living conditions, stated the company.
Samsung also intends to invest 56 trillion won in the development of advanced high-bandwidth memory – HBM fabs at Cheonan as well as Onyang.
The company plans to invest 2.45 trillion won locally so as to boost future growth businesses from 2026 to 2040, it stated in a regulatory filing.
Of the total amount, 2,100 trillion won will be spent on semiconductor clusters, which include a current construction project located at Pyeongtaek, which is Samsung’s main base, and also the Yongin industrial complex, the company said.
SK GROUP
The second-biggest conglomerate in South Korea, SK Group, said it has long-term strategies for projects to boost its manufacturing of semiconductors of almost 1,100 trillion won and for AI data centre projects around 1,000 trillion won.
SK plans to make investments of an average of over 100 trillion won every year in South Korea in the next 10 years, chairman Chey Tae-won confirmed.
SK Hynix, a supplier to Nvidia, is aiming to finish the fourth fab at its Yongin semiconductor cluster by 2033, which is 12 years ahead of the previous target of 2045, Chey said.
SK Hynix intends to invest 400 trillion won to establish a new chip production base in the southwest region of the country that will feature fabs and manufacturing equipment besides existing chip clusters located at Yongin and Cheongju, with execution scheduled to be subject to market demand and board authorizations.
SK Hynix said the southwestern cluster will be a new venture for the company, joining its current front-end memory manufacturing facilities in Icheon and Cheongju as well as Yongin. Chey did not specify a location.
AI DATA CENTERS
SK, conglomerate GS Group and tech giant Naver will invest an overall sum of about 550 trillion won, or $412 billion so as to build 8.4 gigawatts of AI data centres as far as the first phase is concerned, with construction scheduled to begin in the H1 of 2028, the government confirmed.
The science minister of South Korea stated that the investments will likely rise to over 1,000 trillion won by roughly 2035.
SK Telecom, which is an affiliate of SK Group, said in a regulatory filing that it is looking into funding the projects via strategic collaborators such as global major technology firms as well as foreign capital, in addition to other investment structures.
ROBOTICS AND PHYSICAL AI
As South Korea unveils three AI and chip mega projects, it is clear that the government aims for the country to be one of the top three AI robot powers in the world and also the top power in physical AI across the world by 2030.
The country plans to create industry-specific AI robots and seeks to market humanoids for 10 major industries in 2028 and will additionally assist in establishing data manufacturing facilities, promote the development of Korean physical AI foundation models and also train 10,000 AI robotics experts in the next five years.