A national AI and semiconductor expansion led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix is boosting HBM and legacy memory demand, with smaller suppliers and component makers also benefiting as investors watch broader industrial and digital-finance plans.
South Korea’s broader AI and semiconductor investment drive, anchored by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, is feeding through to company earnings across the chip and electronics supply chain. As the two memory leaders prioritize HBM and DDR5 for AI servers, tighter supply of older products has helped legacy-memory specialist Jeju Semiconductor, which reported first-quarter operating profit of 67.1 billion won, up 1,713% year over year, and said it is discussing plans to expand DDR4 and legacy DDR5 production using overseas factories of domestic memory companies. The AI spending wave is also supporting large listed groups, with Samsung reporting preliminary second-quarter revenue of 171 trillion won and operating profit of 89.4 trillion won, while SK Hynix is expected by FnGuide consensus to post revenue of 84.17 trillion won and operating profit of 64.24 trillion won. Beyond memory, LG Innotek and Samsung Electro-Mechanics are benefiting from demand for AI server substrates, MLCCs and other components. The earnings momentum adds near-term evidence for South Korea’s previously reported plan to invest more than $1 trillion across AI infrastructure and an 800 trillion won semiconductor buildout targeting four new fabs and a doubling of national DRAM output by around 2031; investors are also monitoring a planned 2027 pilot to tokenize government bonds under the Bank of Korea’s central bank digital currency framework.