At the “Three Major Mega-Projects for South Korea’s Great Leap Forward” public report on the 29th, the government and business community unveiled a blueprint for hundreds of trillions of won in semiconductor and AI investments, but the Southeast region was excluded from specific new investment targets, fueling a sense of marginalization. While 800 trillion won is concentrated in the Southwest region alone, Busan, Ulsan, and South Gyeongsang Province are limited to expanding existing infrastructure, deepening disappointment within the regional business community.<\/p>\n
The report, chaired directly by President Lee Jae-myung at the Presidential Office’s guesthouse, was attended by Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, and Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jung-kwan, who unveiled national investment plans across three major sectors: semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers. Minister Kim announced a mega-project worth 800 trillion won to build a total of four semiconductor plants\u2014two each by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix\u2014in the Southwest region, declaring, “We will turn the entire Republic of Korea into a semiconductor cluster.”<\/p>\n
However, investment announcements for the Southeast region merely reaffirmed past plans. Chairman Lee Jae-yong stated that investments would be expanded at existing facilities, including Samsung Electro-Mechanics in Busan, Samsung SDI in Ulsan, and Samsung Heavy Industries in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province. Samsung Electro-Mechanics will continue investing in cutting-edge package substrates that connect semiconductor chips to mainboards in Busan, while Samsung SDI will expand its next-generation solid-state battery and energy storage system (ESS) businesses centered on Ulsan. Samsung Heavy Industries plans to strengthen next-generation shipbuilding industry investments in Geoje.<\/p>\n
But these announcements are not only smaller in scale compared to the 800 trillion won for the Southwest region, but specific investment amounts were not even disclosed. This contrasts with Samsung’s new business investments being concentrated in the robotics industry in North Gyeongsang Province, a new memory semiconductor site in Gwangju, and a high-bandwidth memory (HBM) packaging hub in the Chungcheong region. A separate plan to invest 81 trillion won (approximately $52.5 billion) to establish an advanced semiconductor packaging hub in the Chungcheong region was also included.<\/p>\n
In the physical AI sector, the Southeast region is also outside the core investment areas. The government and major corporations announced that day that they would foster robotics technology as a national strategic industry and develop Saemangeum as a robot production hub, but concerns are raised that the Southeast region, with few robot-related companies, could be reduced to a data supplier. The government’s mention of support for power semiconductors in Busan is also criticized as merely repeating announcements made years ago.<\/p>\n
An official from the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry expressed disappointment, saying, “The core of the mega-project is large-scale semiconductor investment in the Southwest region, and there was no clear announcement regarding new investment plans or investment amounts related to semiconductors for Busan.”<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the AI data center construction process is expected to open new opportunities for materials, components, and equipment companies in the Southeast region. Chairman Chey Tae-won announced that SK, GS, Naver, and others will participate in building an 8.4GW AI data center in the first phase, with plans to invest approximately 550 trillion won (approximately $356.8 billion). This process is expected to require the introduction of 10 to 11 new nuclear reactors, and if large-scale construction demand arises, there will be greater room for materials, components, and equipment suppliers in the Southeast region to participate in related industries such as semiconductors, power, and cooling.<\/p>\n
The government announced a policy to develop the Southeast and Daegyeong regions as innovation hubs where materials, components, and equipment companies can cluster. It also unveiled a plan to invest 30 trillion won (approximately $19.5 billion) over the next 15 years to support next-generation semiconductor R&D and build an industrial ecosystem linking companies, universities, and local governments. President Lee expressed a strong will to push forward, stating, “I will establish a dedicated officer directly within the Presidential Office to personally oversee and swiftly support the three mega-projects.”<\/p>\n
Minister Kim Jung-kwan emphasized, “South Korea has entered an era of 1% potential growth rate, and at the current trend, 0% growth is inevitable,” adding, “AI is a game-changer that reshapes the industrial landscape.” He stressed the need for speed, saying, “The only way to shake off the pursuit of competing nations is to build semiconductor factories faster.”<\/p>\n
However, with the Southeast region excluded from direct, large-scale new investments in this announcement, concerns about unbalanced regional growth are also mounting. Despite the government’s vision of binding the entire country into a semiconductor cluster, actual investment resources appear to be concentrated in the Southwest region, the capital area, and the Chungcheong region. The business community in the Southeast region is closely watching to see how much practical benefit local companies can gain from the future data center construction and the creation of the materials, components, and equipment innovation hub.<\/p>\n
The key details of the three mega-projects announced at the report are summarized as follows.<\/p>\n
CategoryKey DetailsInvestment ScaleSemiconductors (Southwest)Construction of 4 fabs total, 2 each by Samsung and SK800 trillion wonSemiconductors (Chungcheong)Fostering advanced packaging hub for HBM, etc.81 trillion wonSemiconductor R&DSupport for next-gen semiconductor R&D30 trillion won (over 15 years)AI Data CenterSK, GS, Naver, etc. participating; Phase 1 at 8.4GWApprox. 550 trillion wonPhysical AISaemangeum robot hub; training 10,000 specialistsUndisclosed<\/p>\n
These mega-projects were presented as a breakthrough for the South Korean economy, which has entered a low-growth phase, but the regional concentration of investment resources is likely to lead to controversy at the political and local government levels. In particular, given that the Southeast region, as a traditional manufacturing base, has been seeking a transition to advanced industries through this opportunity, community backlash and demands for additional measures are expected to follow this announcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the “Three Major Mega-Projects for South Korea’s Great Leap Forward” public report on the 29th, the government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[544,37980,2589,2215,31,146,1133,37979,37740,1223,11345,3164,276,256,753,275,33,37978,37634],"class_list":["post-68957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-ai-data-center","tag-busan-chamber-of-commerce-and-industry","tag-chey-tae-won","tag-kim-jung-kwan","tag-korea","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-lee-jae-yong","tag-materials-components-equipment","tag-mega-project","tag-physical-ai","tag-presidential-office","tag-samsung-electro-mechanics","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-samsung-heavy-industries","tag-samsung-sdi","tag-sk-hynix","tag-south-korea","tag-southeast-region","tag-southwest-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68957","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=68957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}