SK Group Chairman and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Chey Tae-won delivers a lecture at a policy seminar on “Korea’s Growth Strategy Amid the U.S.-China AI Tech Hegemony Race,” hosted by the Korea-China Parliamentarians’ Union at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building on the 28th. Yonhap News
“In the artificial intelligence (AI) era, Korea must transform its growth model itself — shifting from exporting ‘products’ to producing and exporting ‘intelligence.'”
SK Group Chairman and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Chey Tae-won outlined Korea’s AI survival strategy during a lecture titled “Korea’s Growth Strategy Amid the U.S.-China AI Technology Hegemony,” hosted Tuesday by Democratic Party Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon, chairman of the Korea-China Parliamentary Union. Defining AI data centers as “factories that produce intelligence,” he stressed, “Just as with the heavy and chemical industries and the telecommunications industry in the past, industrial development is difficult without infrastructure.”
Chey presented speed, scale and safety as the three conditions of an AI growth model. “First, we need to copy Nvidia’s strategy,” he said. “Even if imperfect, we must build quickly to attract people and secure at least a minimum scale.” He also advised that safety efforts — such as quantifying various social values to prepare for the shocks AI will bring to jobs and the environment — must be expedited.
Chey cited capital, energy, graphics processing units (GPUs) and memory chips as the four constraints that will determine competitiveness in the AI era. “As building capable AI requires exponentially more memory, Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS) have come to earn a great deal of money,” he said. “How well we utilize these bottleneck phases will be the key to an AI growth strategy.”
He also pointed to the limitations of Korea’s domestic AI infrastructure. “Currently, less than 5% of domestic data centers can be used for AI,” he said. “To overcome this, building just 1 GW of capacity costs $50 billion (about 73.65 trillion won).” Regarding electricity, which is essential for AI infrastructure, he noted, “Korea has a power reserve margin of over 30% and could run more than 50 GW of additional capacity, but transmission efficiency is low,” proposing “distributed generation” as an alternative. He added that U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that Big Tech companies procure their own power comes from the same context.
The United States and China are already locked in a fierce contest over electricity — the ammunition of the AI war. “China is far ahead of the U.S. in the volume and speed of electricity generation,” Chey said. “Going forward, China is expected to produce electricity faster than the U.S.” His assessment is that China holds the upper hand on the electricity front in the AI war.
When Democratic Party Rep. Jung Jin-wook asked whether he was willing to build a semiconductor plant using the power infrastructure of Gwangju and South Jeolla Province, Chey replied, “It is not certain that semiconductors must be located where electricity is abundant. The priority is finding businesses that can utilize electricity most efficiently.”
During the lecture, Chey also proposed “Korea-Japan economic integration” as a response to the era of U.S.-China AI hegemony competition. Korea’s economy, currently about one-tenth the size of China’s, should be scaled up through cooperation with Japan to a level capable of exerting influence on both the U.S. and China, he explained.
“If we integrate economies with Japan, the combined economy would be $6 trillion, about one-third the size of China’s,” Chey said. “In that case, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) would inevitably want to be incorporated into our economic bloc.” He added, “It would be possible to create an Asian Union (AU), similar to the European Union (EU). If Korea and Japan take the lead first, they can drive the initiative.”
As the most promising area to attempt first for economic cooperation, he cited connecting power grids. “Both countries are heading toward becoming high-cost societies, and we need a way to bring costs down through integration,” he said. “Even on energy alone, we can reduce costs through synergy and redirect the savings into other investments.” He added, “It is premature to say that economic integration with Japan is itself an immediate goal, but through such methods, we must advance to the point of having the power to make the rules.”
Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Tae-nyun (front row, left) shakes hands with SK Group Chairman and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Chey Tae-won (front row, right) at a policy seminar on “Korea’s Growth Strategy Amid the U.S.-China AI Tech Hegemony Race,” hosted by the Korea-China Parliamentarians’ Union at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building on the 28th. Yonhap News