South Korea unveils roughly $1 trillion push into chips, AI data centers and robotics

South Korea has unveiled a roughly $1 trillion investment drive spanning semiconductor manufacturing, AI data centers and robotics infrastructure, as President Lee Jae-myung argues the country must move faster to keep pace with regional rivals scaling up spending on the same technologies. Lee described semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centers as three national “mega projects” and said the government would speed permitting and expand power and water access for new facilities. Samsung and SK Hynix are central to the plan. Samsung said it would invest KRW2,655 trillion across domestic operations, including KRW2,030 trillion for semiconductor clusters in Pyeongtaek and Yongin and KRW625 trillion for AI chip fabrication, robotics, batteries and IT components in the country’s southern and central regions. Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong said Gwangju is a candidate for another semiconductor cluster, while the company also plans a high-bandwidth memory fabrication facility in the Cheonan-Onyang corridor and a humanoid robot production line in Gumi. SK Hynix, whose high-bandwidth memory chips are used in Nvidia’s AI accelerators, is also a major part of the initiative. The company’s market capitalization passed $1 trillion in May, helped by demand tied to AI data centers. The government also framed the investment as a way to spread industrial development beyond the Seoul metropolitan area. The announcement comes as Japan, Taiwan and China also increase spending tied to chips, robotics and AI infrastructure, and after a sharp June 23 selloff in South Korean equities that hit Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix alongside broader AI-linked trades. South Korea’s exports rose 44% year over year to $21.4 billion, driven largely by semiconductor demand connected to AI workloads.