South Korea to invest $576 billion in AI chip production, aiming for global leadership

South Korea has announced a substantial industrial strategy, pledging over $576 billion in investments towards semiconductors and artificial intelligence to secure global leadership in AI chip production. Unveiled by President Lee Jae Myung on June 29, 2026, the ambitious plan aims to establish a dominant position in advanced AI technologies and foster more balanced economic growth across the nation.

Key to this initiative are Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, two of the world's largest memory chipmakers. They are committed to building new semiconductor fabrication facilities in South Korea's southwestern region, diversifying industrial hubs beyond the capital area. This "great leap forward" strategy focuses on semiconductors, physical AI, and data centers to rapidly meet the escalating global demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips crucial for AI systems.