A Seoul announcement could redirect hundreds of trillions of won to chip fabs and AI data centers outside the capital, reshaping regional industry and politics.<\/p>\n
Seoul, June 26 \u2013 Samsung Group will announce an ambitious investment plan for the next decade, valued at 1,000 trillion won ($648 billion). According to Maeil Business Newspaper, part of them could amount to up to 300 trillion won for chip-manufacturing plants in the southwestern part of the country.<\/p>\n
The package of investments, which will also include AI data centers, batteries and displays, is to be announced during a meeting with President Lee Jae Myung at the presidential office, the paper writes on Friday, without citing specific sources.<\/p>\n
The goal of the initiative is to turn the Ukrainian AI boom into a national growth engine by removing bottlenecks in infrastructure and launching jobs and advanced manufacturing processes beyond the capital region. At the same time a debate is unfolding about how to distribute the benefits from the expected profits among industry giants, notably between Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which are showing record profits.<\/p>\n
The meeting with this group is expected to include senior executives from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, who are to voice investment plans aimed beyond Seoul, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The article itself does not specify a concrete date for implementing the investments. Earlier, other local media also reported similar plans, not providing detailed figures.<\/p>\n
The concentrated location of chipmakers\u2019 production facilities near Seoul has long attracted political pressure and intensified as President Lee Jae Myung seeks to distribute development more evenly.<\/p>\n
Opposition lawmakers believe that the plan inflates political motivation and hint at government pressure regarding investments in its southwestern hub ahead of intra-party leadership contests.<\/p>\n
Lee also held separate meetings with the leaders of Samsung and SK this week, media outlets report.<\/p>\n
The presidential office said that on Monday three megaprojects would be presented, aiming to usher the nation into a phase of a new leap, with plans covering the semiconductor, artificial intelligence data centers and robotics sectors. According to policy adviser Kim Young-bom, these initiatives will be outlined jointly by the government and industry, with substantial investments expected, but details are not disclosed.<\/p>\n
Samsung and SK Hynix declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Investing Beyond Seoul<\/p>\n
Samsung Group is South Korea\u2019s largest conglomerate, whose core is Samsung Electronics, but it also includes battery maker Samsung SDI and IT services Samsung SDS, among others.<\/p>\n
According to executives, Samsung and SK Hynix may shift timelines for implementing parts of projects that were initially planned for the 2040s, moving them into the mid-2030s due to growing demand for memory driven by AI, thereby freeing up space and resources to expand beyond the metropolitan region.<\/p>\n
Deputies also warned that further concentration of production in the Seoul area could push up real estate prices and exacerbate social inequality.<\/p>\n
At the same time, experts express doubts whether the southwestern hub can overcome shortages of talented personnel and infrastructure constraints that critically affect advanced manufacturing.<\/p>\n
Government and regional workforce programs, along with the region\u2019s economic attractiveness, remain key to the success of such a scale. \u201cSecuring a truly advanced factory is a decisive factor. Otherwise, the impact on the local economy will be limited, and the project could become a construction site and a driver for rising real estate prices,\u201d emphasized one expert.<\/p>\n
If a truly advanced factory is not built, the local economic impact will be limited \u2013 it risks turning into a purely construction project and an impulse for rising real estate prices.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Kim Tae-yun<\/p>\n
Regional Development<\/p>\n
The political context around semiconductor investments sharpened ahead of local elections on June 3, and the debate over directions for the next round of funding intensified, as Lee\u2019s government has made AI a key economic strategy.<\/p>\n
According to Gallup Korea, Lee\u2019s approval rating fell to 51% \u2013 the lowest since taking office last year.<\/p>\n
Candidates from different regions actively pitch their areas as future chip hubs, promising to attract giants like Samsung and SK Hynix. Proposals ranged from a 500 trillion won chip complex in the southwestern region to expanding clusters in several other areas, reflecting a broad fight for strategic technologies.<\/p>\n
The discussion also concerns cities where strong manufacturing centers are already located, such as Icheon, where SK Hynix has key plants, and how much local funding depends on this company.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the city\u2019s tax revenue comes from SK\u2019s microchip plant, and our wellbeing depends on it,\u201d said Jo Jon-taek, head of a civic group in Icheon.<\/p>\n
Lee is promoting a plan to create \u201cfive regional centers and three special self-governing provinces\u201d to reduce Seoul\u2019s dominance, which in 2024 accounted for more than half of the country\u2019s gross regional product.<\/p>\n
Regional inequality is particularly evident in Gwangju, a key southwestern city with a less developed regional economy. The media also report that Samsung Electronics is considering Gwangju as a potential investment site. At the same time, the southwestern region, which includes Gwangju and Jeolla provinces, traditionally supports Lee\u2019s Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
According to election results, Lee received 49.42% of the national vote in the 2025 presidential election, but in Gwangju and South Jeolla his support was about 85%.<\/p>\n
The main opposition party, People Power Party, accuses the government of politicizing semiconductor investments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere exactly chip plants will be built should be decided by the companies, not the president,\u201d said PPP spokesperson Park Song-hoon this week.<\/p>\n
The dollar-to-won rate stands at approximately 1 dollar = 1,544.3200 won.<\/p>\n
As they chart a strategic vector for regional development, the government and the industrial sector are trying to balance national growth with local advantages. Details of the three megaprojects await official disclosure, but already the market is watching how regional policy and large investments could reshape South Korea and its technological competitiveness in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Seoul announcement could redirect hundreds of trillions of won to chip fabs and AI data centers outside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[4221,36256,154,9260,127,276,25596,36255,275],"class_list":["post-65491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-ai-data-centers","tag-chip-fabs-south-korea","tag-news","tag-regional-development","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-samsung-investment","tag-samsung-investment-chip-fabs-south-korea-ai-data-centers-regional-development-sk-hynix","tag-sk-hynix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}