South Korea announces more than 1 trillion AI, chip investment drive

South Korea has laid out a sweeping industrial strategy focused on semiconductor chips and artificial intelligence projects as President Lee Jae Myung pledges to cement overwhelming industry leadership with investments of hundreds of billions of dollars over several years. Flanked by the heads of the world's two biggest memory chipmakers, Lee cast the initiative on Monday as a "great leap forward" centred on the "triple axis" of semiconductors, physical AI and data centres. The world's two largest memory chipmakers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, will invest 800 trillion won ($518bn) with suppliers to build two new chip fabrication sites each in South Korea's southwest, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said. Lee said the country's southwestern city of Gwangju and South Jeolla province will also invest 5 trillion to 20 trillion won ($3.2bn to $13bn) in the projects. Kim said a further 81 trillion won ($52.5bn) is expected to be invested for a chip-packaging cluster in the Chungcheong area near Seoul.