South Korea to launch ₩20 trillion strategic sovereign wealth fund next year

South Korea is moving ahead with a sovereign investment vehicle of more than ₩20 trillion to support strategic and advanced industries, including artificial intelligence infrastructure, through a new account managed by the Korea Investment Corporation. The fund would combine 16 trillion won from government-backed financial institutions including Korea Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of Korea and Industrial Bank of Korea with about 4 trillion won in government-held shares acquired through inheritance and gift tax payments. The initiative is aimed at strengthening domestic computing capacity at a time when South Korea is a critical supplier of AI memory chips through companies such as SK Hynix and Samsung but remains weaker in AI compute infrastructure. A June Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report said South Korea, along with Australia and Italy, has no significant publicly available operational AI chip clusters, while nearly 75% of such high-tech AI computing clusters were located in the United States as of mid-2025. Officials said the fund would have no maturity date and would operate on principles of profitability, stability and public interest. Returns could be reinvested, distributed to the government as dividends or transferred to the national treasury. The finance ministry wants National Assembly approval before year-end so the fund can begin operations in 2027, when lawmakers are also expected to finalize whether the capital will focus mainly on AI computing infrastructure and data centers or be spread more broadly across strategic industries. The plan comes as global and regional AI spending accelerates. IDC estimates Asia-Pacific spending on AI and generative AI will rise from $73 billion in 2024 to $370 billion in 2029, while Omdia projects global data-center investment could reach nearly $1.6 trillion by 2030.