Samsung and SK Pledge 4,755 Trillion Won to Keep South Korea's Chip Lead. Here's Where It Goes.
At a June 29 meeting with President Lee Jae Myung, Samsung and SK Group pledged about 4,755 trillion won ($3.11 trillion) for chip fabs, HBM packaging and AI data centers across South Korea.
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Correction (October 9, 2026): This article was originally published as "South Korea Just Bet $1.3 Trillion on Chips." That figure, about 2,000 trillion won, came from estimates reported before the June 29 announcement. The companies actually pledged about 4,755 trillion won (about $3.11 trillion). The earlier version also misstated the number of new fabs and the share price moves, and presented the stock decline as a reaction to the plan, which the reporting does not support. We have rewritten the article from the sources linked below and moved it to a new address; the old link redirects here.
On June 29, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won to unveil what the government calls its "three megaprojects": semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centers. The companies' plans add up to a total investment of 4,755 trillion won ($3.11 trillion), according to Yonhap's figures cited by The Korea Times: 2,655 trillion won from Samsung and 2,100 trillion won from SK, mostly over the next decade.
Where Samsung's 2,655 trillion won goes
Samsung's plan is spread across the country, with about 2,100 trillion won for semiconductors:
- Existing chip campuses in Giheung, Hwaseong, Pyeongtaek and Yongin take the largest share. Pyeongtaek's P5 and P6 fabs will be built at the same time instead of one after the other, and the sixth fab at the Yongin national industrial complex moves forward by up to seven years, to 2040.
- Gwangju, in the southwestern Honam region, gets two new memory fabs and 400 trillion won, creating Samsung's second chip cluster outside the Seoul area.
- Cheonan and Onyang get 56 trillion won for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) packaging, the step that stacks memory for AI accelerators.
- Other affiliates add display, battery, substrate and robotics plants, and Samsung SDS plans an AI data center in Haenam.
Where SK's 2,100 trillion won goes
SK's plan splits roughly in half:
- SK Hynix, about 1,100 trillion won: 600 trillion won for its Yongin cluster, with completion pulled forward 12 years and the fourth fab due by 2033; about 100 trillion won in Cheongju for a new NAND fab and advanced HBM packaging; and 400 trillion won for two fabs in a new southwestern cluster.
- SK Telecom, about 1,000 trillion won: AI data centers totaling 15 gigawatts nationwide, starting with 5 GW and growing in stages to 2035.
What the companies asked for in return
The executives used the meeting to ask for help. Samsung Vice Chairman Jun Young-hyun said "rapid one-stop administrative support is urgently needed", and SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung noted that the Yongin complex is classified as a general industrial complex, so it cannot receive benefits under the Special Act on Semiconductors. Chey Tae-won framed the spending around demand: "I believe we will continue to suffer from supply shortages for memory semiconductors in the future."
Lee said the projects were a long-planned national strategy, and rejected opposition claims that they were timed to lift his approval ratings, pointing out that they were not launched before the June 3 local elections.
How the market reacted
Both stocks fell that day. Samsung Electronics closed down 4.86% and SK Hynix down 1.68% as foreign investors sold about 7.7 trillion won of Korean shares. Local reporting does not tie the drop to the investment plan: the announcement came in the afternoon, and the decline narrowed after it, though not enough to offset the foreign selling.
Why it matters
The plan pushes the two companies' new chip capacity out of the crowded Seoul region and into the southwest, and puts HBM packaging at the center of both companies' spending. Analysis: memory, and HBM in particular, is the part of the AI hardware stack where South Korea already leads, and these commitments are a bet that AI demand for it will keep growing for years. The risks are the usual ones for memory makers, which live through sharp price cycles, plus the practical ones the executives raised themselves: permits, power, water and enough skilled workers to staff new sites far from the existing clusters.
Sources: The Korea Times · SBS News · The Elec · Financial News · Nocut News
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