"A staggering 4,700 trillion won"... Lee Jae-yong and Choi Tae-won made President Lee Jae-myung bow 90 degrees

[Financial News] Samsung and SK, which are leading the country's future industries as the two semiconductor powerhouses, announced on the 29th that they will each invest more than 2,000 trillion won in South Korea. The move is being seen as a bold bet driven by urgency to pull ahead by a wide margin in global competition in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won attended the "National Report Meeting on the Three Major Mega Projects for Korea's Great Leap Forward" held at the Blue House on the day, where they unveiled their future investment plans. The two groups presented a nationwide investment blueprint that goes beyond the existing semiconductor production base centered on the Seoul metropolitan area and extends across Chungcheong, Honam, and Yeongnam.

Samsung will pour a total of 2,655 trillion won into South Korea to foster cutting-edge future industries. First, it plans to invest 2,030 trillion won in developing existing semiconductor clusters, including the Pyeongtaek Campus and the Yongin National Industrial Complex, in order to respond early to the explosive growth in memory demand. In addition, it will spend 400 trillion won to build a new semiconductor cluster in Gwangju in the Honam region and construct two semiconductor fabs there, turning it into a new production base.
A total of 140 trillion won will be invested in the Chungcheong region. Samsung will spend 56 trillion won in Cheonan and Onyang to build advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) fabs. In Asan, Samsung Display will build a production base for next-generation smartphone displays, including foldable panels, as well as ultra-high-resolution micro displays. Samsung Electro-Mechanics also plans to establish a new package substrate line for cutting-edge AI server use at its Sejong Plant. In addition, Samsung has decided to invest a total of 60 trillion won in the Yeongnam region to combine artificial intelligence transformation (AX) and robot transformation (RX) with its core manufacturing industries. Chairman Lee said he would always maintain a sense of crisis and work to stay focused on customer needs and technological innovation so Samsung can stay far ahead in global competition.

SK Group unveiled a mid- to long-term strategy worth 2,100 trillion won for semiconductor investment centered on SK Hynix and for building AI data centers led by SK Telecom. SK Hynix will invest 1,100 trillion won to expand infrastructure. It plans to move up the schedule for the Yongin semiconductor cluster, originally slated for completion in 2045, by 12 years and finish construction of the fourth fab by 2033, with a total investment of 600 trillion won. It will also invest about 100 trillion won in Cheongju to build a new NAND fab and strengthen advanced HBM packaging capabilities. Another 400 trillion won will go toward building two fabs for a new semiconductor cluster in the southwestern region.
SK Telecom will invest about 1,000 trillion won to build AI data centers with a combined capacity of 15 gigawatts (GW) across the country. In the first phase, it will gradually build 5GW of data center capacity, then expand by another 10GW in stages by 2035.
GS Group, led by Chairman Hur Tae-soo, also joined the wave of large-scale investment. GS Group will invest about 30 trillion won to build a massive AI data center campus with a total capacity of 2.4GW in Bukpyeong Second Industrial Complex in Donghae, Gangwon. The plan is to first build 1.2GW by 2028 and then complete what would become Asia's largest data center through further expansion by the following year.

Immediately after the two group chairmen announced their investment plans, President Lee Jae-myung called the business leaders heroes of the people and the nation, then bowed deeply at a 90-degree angle to express his gratitude. It was a gesture of profound thanks for their decision to invest at home despite better conditions overseas.
Meanwhile, the business community pushed back against speculation that the government had pressured companies over new investment in the Honam region. A business source said such astronomical investments, which are tied to a company's very survival, cannot be decided by government pressure alone. The source added that this announcement was a thoroughly economic judgment and an indispensable choice for survival in preparation for surging semiconductor demand and the AI era.

moon@fnnews.com Moon Young-jin Reporter