South Korea has announced a sweeping $900 billion investment programme spanning memory chips, AI data centres, and physical AI infrastructure, with Samsung and SK Hynix committing the bulk of the capital. The plan, unveiled at a presidential briefing attended by both companies’ chairmen, allocates $518 billion to build four new memory fabs in the country’s underdeveloped southwest, $52 billion toward a high-bandwidth memory packaging hub in central Korea, and $356 billion toward AI data centres to be built by SK, GS, and Naver through 2035.
President Jae Myung Lee described semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centres as the central pillars of South Korea’s next industrial era, declaring 2026 the year the country must establish itself as an indispensable global industrial power. Lee said existing chip facilities near Seoul had reached capacity limits, urging accelerated investment in the southwest to distribute economic benefits beyond the capital region, while denying that the government had pressured companies into the commitments.
Samsung separately confirmed plans to invest roughly $1.7 trillion over the next decade, including a new fab in Gwangju and an AI data centre in Haenam. SK Group outlined its own $1.4 trillion roadmap, split between semiconductor capacity expansion and nationwide AI data centre development, with SK Telecom leading construction of 15 gigawatts of capacity.
The investments come amid a global memory chip shortage driven by surging AI demand, positioning South Korea to compete more directly with US hyperscalers’ own massive AI infrastructure spending.
